World's second Nissan Leaf owner overjoyed by electric hatch

In mid-December, the first U.S. Leaf owner, Olivier Chalouhi, summed up his behind-the-wheel time in Nissan's electric hatch. Just days ago, Plugin Cars sat down with the world's second Leaf owner, Tom Franklin of San Diego, CA, and discussed Nissan's battery-powered car. At the time of the interview, Franklin had only driven the Leaf for five days, but it's apparent that he's overjoyed with his decision to ditch his 2006 Toyota Prius in favor of the Leaf. Here's some excerpts from Franklin's interview with Plugin Cars:

In a gas car, you push on the accelerator and it pulls on a cable, which changes a valve to put more gas down a line which eventually gets to cylinders that create explosions that drive a drivetrain, that if it's a CVT there's some clutching in there, so there's a lot of lag. From the time you push the accelerator to when you go, what is it, a quarter of a second or a half-second, or a couple seconds.

However, Franklin describes the Leaf's nearly instantaneous acceleration like this:

I push on the accelerator and it's immediately delivering power to the wheels, at essentially the speed of light. If I were to design a perfect car, it's going to work like the Nissan Leaf. I push and I go.

Franklin touches on range anxiety too, stating:

I had a little bit of range anxiety for the first time-but I still had 50 miles of charge on the car. I was able to get to and from work without any issue, but I had to think about it.

The San Diego man wrapped up his interview by offering this peculiar observation:

I'm never going to have to go to a gas station. I'm never going to have gasoline smell on my hands. That smell is a funky thing that's hard to wash off, that tells me it's got into my body somehow. And like a pack of cigarettes, it has health warnings all over the pumps.

Sounds like another happy customer.

[Source: Plugin Cars]