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Nissan Leaf Open Car one-off convertible revealed in Tokyo

The topless electric car is just a promotional vehicle and won't be put into production.

Nissan Leaf Open Car

You won't see this version of the Leaf at your Nissan dealer any time soon.

Nissan

Electric cars can help keep the air we breathe just a little bit cleaner, and what better way to enjoy that than with a top-down cruise? The Leaf Open Car appears to be the answer to that question. It's a convertible version of the newest Leaf electric car, revealed this week in Tokyo.

The Nissan Leaf convertible was built to celebrate the milestone of 100,000 Leaf sales in Japan since 2010. That's an impressive figure for the electric car, which has sold over 300,000 globally.

This one-off model is based on the new, second-gen Leaf that was revealed last fall. While four seats are retained inside, clearly not much of the original bodywork was. There are now just two doors rather than four, and just open air between the swept-back windshield and the tall C-pillar. As to an actual convertible top? Uh, there doesn't seem to be one.

There's also no word on how the Leaf's weight and aerodynamics, and thus driving range, were affected by chopping the top, but we can't imagine it's a positive for green motoring. Here in the US, the EPA says a 2018 Leaf will travel 151 miles on a single charge of its 40-kWh battery, and a longer-range model is due to appear for the 2019 model year.

As if you even needed to ask, Nissan emphasizes that it will not be putting the Leaf convertible into production. Memories of the slow sales of the Murano CrossCabriolet no doubt helped seal the topless Leaf's fate as a one-off marketing tool.

Plug yourself into the new 2018 Nissan Leaf

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Jake Holmes Reviews Editor
While studying traditional news journalism in college, Jake realized he was smitten by all things automotive and wound up with an internship at Car and Driver. That led to a career writing news, review and feature stories about all things automotive at Automobile Magazine, most recently at Motor1. When he's not driving, fixing or talking about cars, he's most often found on a bicycle.
Jake Holmes
While studying traditional news journalism in college, Jake realized he was smitten by all things automotive and wound up with an internship at Car and Driver. That led to a career writing news, review and feature stories about all things automotive at Automobile Magazine, most recently at Motor1. When he's not driving, fixing or talking about cars, he's most often found on a bicycle.

Article updated on May 25, 2018 at 12:11 PM PDT

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Jake Holmes Reviews Editor
While studying traditional news journalism in college, Jake realized he was smitten by all things automotive and wound up with an internship at Car and Driver. That led to a career writing news, review and feature stories about all things automotive at Automobile Magazine, most recently at Motor1. When he's not driving, fixing or talking about cars, he's most often found on a bicycle.
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