Enterprise buys 500 Nissan LEAFs

According to the Wall Street Journal and Bloomburg.com, Enterprise has purchased 500 Nissan LEAFS for its rental car fleets.

Enterprise which owns the Enterprise Rent-a-Car, Alamo and National Hire Car Brands, plans to locate the vehicles in it's rental car fleets around the US. It is unclear whether any will be located in the UK.

In Febuary it was announced that Hertz had also purchased some Nissan LEAFs for both their US and European hire car fleets.

Nissan has ambitious plans for the Leaf when it goes on sale later this year in the US and early next year in Europe. Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn has set the goal of producing as many as 500,000 vehicles globally by the end of 2012.

It is unclear how profitable the Nissan LEAF will be for Nissan. Toyota's original hybrid Prius was famously sold at a loss to the company, when released in 2001. It is now a success for the company as the car’s green image has rubbed off on Toyota's image amongst car buyers.

Nissan gave WhatGreenCar the chance to test drive an early production model of the LEAF along Bedfordshire’s leafy lanes and A-roads yesterday. As one of only 4 LEAFs in existance at the moment, and the only one located in Europe, we drove it very carefully, but none the less it definately impressed us.

Come back in a few days for the full review.