Car hire firm Enterprise is to buy 500 models of Nissan’s all-electric Leaf with delivery set to start in January.
The firm which owns Enterprise Rent-A-Car and Alamo will help push Nissan forward in pursuit of the title of the world’s largest producer of electric cars.
Its expected that Enterprise will make an official statement later today to confirm the order for the models, after a spokesperson at Nissan broke the news to Bloomberg.com.
The Nissan Leaf, set to be the world’s first all-electric mass-produced family car is a four seater model powered by lithium-ion batteries. The C-segment car is capable of delivering a top speed of around 90mph and a range of the 100miles.
The carmaker aims to sell at least 20,000 models of the $32,780 Leaf in the US during the model’s first year, after it is introduced at the end of 2010. The Japanese carmaker has already taken over 7,000 pre-orders for the model from US customers.
The sale of the electric cars to St. Louis-based Enterprise is the second such big fleet deal for the carmaker, which announced in February it would supply Leafs to Hertz Global Holdings for use in rental fleets in the US and Europe.
