C. Van Tune is a former Editor-in-Chief of Motor Trend.

I received an email today that I thought you’d be interested in. It came from the PR department of the upcoming Los Angeles Auto Show, proudly noting how many “green cars” would be on display. No other vehicles were noted, just a long list of save-the-planet people movers: Seventy-one in all.

Ugh.

Times are rapidly changing for the worse in the car business if you’re a lover of gasoline-ignited horsepower. The days are numbered for today’s traditional performance cars, regardless of nameplate. The sobering slap across our faces is that all car companies (including even Ferrari and Porsche) are working on hybrid, fuel cell, and/or full-electric versions in order to meet the upcoming more stringent government mpg and emissions requirements. And regardless of the feel-good spin put on such cars by their giddy purveyors, the cold, hard truth is that driving as we know it will forever change.

Like Ewing has experienced, I’ve driven several full-electric “performance” cars. But while they can accelerate quickly, they simply have no soul. No muscular sounds of the engine revving, no rumbling exhaust note, no burnouts, no power-shifting of gears. Just a limp-wristed whirring of the electric motor(s) as the car is propelled. Sure, it may go 0-60 mph in five seconds, but the experience isn’t anything like you’re accustomed. I’m guessing it’s like the difference between sex with a blow-up doll versus the real thing. Only it’s worse than that. It’s more like the government has outlawed sex with real women and said you can only do it with a gov’t-approved blow-up doll from now on. They’ve decided it’s better for the planet that way. And, no, your opinion doesn’t matter.

Factoring in all of the above, I believe that 2012 (or possibly 2013) will become the lasting high-water mark for the worldwide roster of great performance cars. Sort of like 1970 was the pinnacle of the original muscle car era. But I’m also concerned that the game-changing impact of what’s happening today won’t be recognized by the public until it’s too late.

My advice: If you want to own a brand-new gasoline-powered performance vehicle, buy it now. I believe that the values of many of today’s most powerful cars will climb after they’re gone from production. Those machines will truly be the last of their lineages, as subsequent new models will become morphed into alternate-fuel-powered, amorphous, androgynous drones. To modify the old gun-owners’ maxim: The government will take my Ferrari 458 Italia when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers. Yes, even if gasoline has been outlawed and I can’t drive it. Hell, if that’s the case, then bury me in it.

Just a couple of years ago, the highlight of any auto show would’ve been performance cars, luxury vehicles and big, powerful trucks and their SUV cousins. For 2012, it’s the following list of High Mileage and Green-Tech Vehicles.

This is our future, like it or not. And it will only get worse for devotees of dinosaur-fueled performance cars like you and me.

40-plus MPG
Audi A3 TDI (clean diesel)
Chevrolet Cruze Eco
Chevrolet Sonic
Ford Focus SFE
Ford Fiesta SFE
Honda Civic GX
Honda Civic HF
Hyundai Accent
Hyundai Elantra
Hyundai Veloster
Kia Rio (2012)
Mazda3 SKYACTIV (2012)
Smart ForTwo
Volkswagen Jetta TDI (clean diesel)
Volkswagen Jetta SportWagon TDI (clean diesel)
Volkswagen Passat TDI (clean diesel)
Volkswagen Golf TDI (clean diesel)

Hybrids and Plug-in hybrids
BMW i8 Concept
BMW ActiveHybrid 7
BMW ActiveHybrid X6
Buick LaCrosse eAssist
Buick Regal eAssist
Cadillac Ciel concept
Cadillac Escalade Hybrid
Chevrolet Malibu Eco
Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid
Chevrolet Volt
Ford C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid
Ford Fusion Hybrid
Fisker Karma
Fisker Surf
GMC Yukon Hybrid
GMC Yukon Denali Hybrid
Honda CR-Z Sport Hybrid Coupe
Honda Civic Hybrid
Honda Insight
Honda Plug-in Hybrid concept
Hyundai Sonata Hybrid
Infiniti M35 Hybrid
KIA Optima Hybrid
Lincoln MKZ Hybrid
Lexus CT 200h
Lexus GS 450h

Lexus LS 600h L
Lexus RX 450h
Porsche Cayenne S Hybrid
Porsche Panamera S Hybrid
Toyota Camry Hybrid
Toyota Highlander Hybrid
Toyota Prius
Toyota Prius v
Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid
Volkswagen Touareg Hybrid

Clean Diesel Vehicles
Audi A3 TDI
Audi Q7 TDI
BMW 335d Sedan
Mercedes-Benz S350 BlueTEC
Volkswagen Jetta TDI
Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen TDI
Volkswagen Passat TDI
Volkswagen Golf TDI

Electric Vehicles
BMW i3 Concept
CODA Sedan
Ford Focus BEV prototype
Fiat 500 EV
Mitsubishi i
Nissan LEAF
Smart ForTwo
Toyota RAV4
DOK-ING XD

Hydrogen/Hydrogen Fuel Cell
Honda FCX Clarity

At a Christmas party I listened to a group of tech geeks speak in excited tones about the Nissan Leaf. “It’s cool. Now I can drive my computer,” and lines like that.

On a recent press trip, I listened to a hormonally imbalanced young journalist pan the Leaf in the harshest possible terms, accusing the car of having a 30-mile range, among other slurs meant to please his then-current hosts. His statements were enough to prompt a call to Nissan to ask for a car. Nissan obliged.

At first, I wrote a straight-up vehicle review, but the details of this car are well known. What’s the point of covering an electric motor and air-cooled batteries? Leaf provokes all kinds of Jules Verne thought patterns, and that’s the real joy of driving one. You think about what’s possible, what’s feasible, and what might actually work in a market free of government manipulation.

Like a Jules Verne novel, Leaf is mostly about a fantastical future, not the present. I have a deep love for process, and systems engineering and infrastructure is nothing if not process. Leaf is a challenge to the liquid-fueled infrastructure of the past century and today.

After spending a week in a Leaf, I’m a bit torn. I like the car because, frankly, it works pretty well. I was able to disprove the statements of that hormonally imbalanced young journalist who claimed Leaf has a mere 30-mile range. Leaf has the advertised range: 80+ miles with the AC on, maybe as much as 110 miles if you drive slowly with the windows down on a temperate California day. I proved that point by driving the Leaf every day during a brutal Southern California heat wave, AC blasting.

Leaf shifter: You go forward, backwards, or hit P for Park

On every trip, including a 33-mile freeway trip from Pasadena to our place at the beach, the distance tallied on the trip odometer matched the distance lost on the range gauge. If your around-town trip involves more than a few destinations, just pay attention to the gauge, and don’t think you can make an impromptu run from, say, Pasadena to Zuma Beach and back without careful thought and planning. LA is a big place, and you can burn through 80 miles range pretty quickly.

We drove around greater Pasadena, into Old Town, over to Occidental College in Eagle Rock for a site inspection, out and about. We began to like the Leaf, and enjoy its company.

No surprise, Leaf’s regenerative braking works just as well as on any hybrid. Amazing how this concept has evolved in a bit more than a decade—there’s little indication when the mechanical brakes step in to help slow the car. On a 20-mile round trip through Old Town, with lots of start/stop at relatively low speeds but also a few heavy-throttle passes of lumbering CNG-powered buses, we only lost 12 miles or so of range.

Like hybrids, Leaf has both numerical and graphic indicators of your efficiency. I nicknamed the graphic gauge the “Hug-o-Meter,” as efficient driving helps build a little forest of trees on your dashboard display.

The Hug-o-Meter

Several times along Colorado, people turned to give the thumbs up. Not the sort of guys who give thumbs up when you’re driving a high-performance press car like a Porsche or Lamborghini. Instead, the sort of folks with “Green” and “tech geek” identifiers, like beards, sandals, Subarus, and bongo drums. If we’d stopped to speak with any of them, I’m certain they would have stuttered out software coding, all ones and zeroes. Their reactions were emotional, speaking to a considerable amount of interest in EVs. A new and welcome sort of “automotive enthusiast.”

My friends and former friends in Detroit who attack EVs may be missing something: a prosperous segment of society wants to believe in the EV Faith. Even if you don’t believe, the capitalist slogan “Give the people what they want” has validity.  Many of those same Detroiters were naysayers when the Prius arrived. How did that story play out?

Among a close circle of family friends is a brilliant young surgeon who is enamored with Tesla. A couple weeks after driving the Leaf, I gave her much the same evaluation you read here, and mentioned that if Fisker is for real—we’ll see—that’s another option. When a young surgeon with a big future ahead wants to know about EVs, you might want to think about how to sell her a car.

A few days after returning the Leaf, I sat with the car’s chief US product planner, who said the Department of Energy has measured the Leaf as a component of the electrical grid. From a coal plant to the grid to the tires of the Leaf, the car cuts pollution by roughly 60 percent compared with a typical compact car. So even burning nasty old West Virginia black earth, overall a Leaf is producing less pollution than a 30-MPG gas-powered compact sedan. OK, I can buy that, though such gas-powered compacts are pretty clean and I don’t accept that contemporary automobiles are anywhere near the environmental problem Al Gore and others claim they are. With advances in fuel injection, engine controls and transmissions, gas-powered cars will only grow more efficient in the coming decade, if that’s what Americans actually want.

Leaf is quick enough to handle the dense traffic of Colorado Blvd (to those of you not from California, that’s the path for the Rose Parade), extremely quiet and, honestly, downright soothing to drive, the flying carpet iPhone car. Leaf has an incredible turning radius for life in the city, though I could not get the actual figure confirmed—the press kit has what is clearly a typo. Suffice to say Leaf navigates city traffic very well. The rear seats have adequate legroom and excellent headroom. The cargo area is big enough for a few suitcases or a week’s groceries.

The craftsman who maintains the family’s old Tudor manse in Greater Pasadena was fascinated by the Leaf, and wanted to discuss it at length. He’s a self-taught craftsman who has built beachside mansions in Southern California—and that includes the electricals. A very thoughtful guy, he understands art, design, and the need for excellent fundamentals.

When I drove the car into the garden on the way to the garage, he followed. “It makes hardly any sound. Just that singing sound,” was his opening comment. He couldn’t resist taking time away from his project to talk about the car—and this man drives a Chevy work truck every day.

He wanted to understand the charging process, placement of the air-cooled batteries (“Down low, that’s good—and simple to cool”), drive mechanism (“Electric motors are simple and don’t wear out, like on trains”), and to discuss the gross inefficiency of the grid, how much electricity is lost on the wires of the grid (“Even from the lines along the street to this outlet, ah, you lose a lot”). He was most curious about the intense voltage of the “rapid chargers” that become commonplace, and how a regular person on the street might contend with them in complete safety.

In our discussion, he proved beyond doubt he understands all too well the dangers of intense electrical transfer. He also pointed out that applications for such vehicles are highly specialized, and he would not be replacing his Diesel truck with an EV, but he happily covered the topic of electric forklifts. He saw some possibility for work vehicles working in confined areas.

Most amusing event of the week? On San Gabriel Blvd heading into San Marino I drag raced a Porsche Turbo. First I gave him a taste with a roll-on from 20 mph. Then at the light, we went for it. I didn’t win, obviously, but the guy clearly wanted to witness Leaf’s acceleration. He was amused and gave me a thumbs-up. Clearly, he was intrigued.

Nissan PIVO EV Concept--The Pod

Design Freedom

Leaf has conventional body architecture, with a few wacky design elements like the taillights, blue metallic trim, and the bulging Grouper headlights to let you know it’s somehow different. With this first attempt, Nissan did not take advantage of the opportunity to reinvent the packaging of the automobile.

I suspect Nissan-Renault is wise to first establish the technology in parallel with growing and greatly needed infrastructure, and then ladle in more innovative body design and interior packaging once there’s a population of EV advocates on the road.

With a bit of cabling, a pumpkin motor, and a layer of Lithium-Ion “bricks” stored below the floorboards, freedom exists to greatly reinvent the meaning of a passenger car. Sure, sure, you still need crash structures, proper seats with active headrests, seat belts, airbags, side intrusion protection and stout roof pillars for rollover…BLAH BLAH BLAH.

But beyond that, here’s my first Jules Verne moment: EVs can be a clean slate. Taking a tip from the GM hydrogen concept cars of the past decade, imagine how engineers and designers at Nissan can rethink the automobile. Leaf is utterly conventional, but imagine the pods that might come in the future.

PIVO's forward hatch, like Heinkel and BMW Isetta bubble cars of the Fifties

Think PIVO, without the little robot man staring at you, or the egg body pivoting around on a “skateboard” carriage (apologies to GM hydrogen car for using the term “skateboard”).

Leaf Concept, The Town Pod. Note that it is much more upright and van-like.

Nissan has talked about a successor to the 1950s Prince electric delivery truck shown below. But before the fluffy-headed fun and whimsical thinking…there’s infrastructure.

Infrastructure

Biggest problem during my week? Infrastructure. I could not charge the car at our beach home, as the place is too old and funky, and has only a handful of poorly maintained outlets in the communal garage area. Our HOA is considering installation of a rapid charging system at the clubhouse to start, but that’s easily a year away. We still have repairs to the sea wall to complete.

So I stored Leaf at the family home in Greater Pasadena, with the aforementioned 33-mile freeway blast to the beach the day before returning the car.

Our town council has recently funded installation of rechargers at our local beach, but in the 90 minutes I might be parked there at dawn or sunset, the car will NOT gain significant charge. Those chargers are more for meter maid cop cars charging overnight, or for families spending the entire day at the seaside. A welcome sign, but not the answer.

To own and operate a Leaf in LA, and avoid panic attacks every evening while driving home, you’d want recharging stations at the office. You’d want recharging stations anywhere you can get them, from shopping malls to grocery stores. Driving a Leaf fosters urges akin to that well-known desire to charge an iPhone any chance possible, just to keep it topped up. I discovered that shopping malls we frequent, like South Coast Plaza and Fashion Island, have invested or are investing in recharging stations, including rapid chargers. Not hard to see a more luxurious EV becoming a darling in Newport Beach, so long as it has serious acceleration off the line to keep pace with Bentleys and Audi A5’s.

Under current circumstances, even with an available social networking app that puts you in touch with early adopters who are willing to let fellow Leafers recharge at their homes, you really have to want an EV, and plan your life and your driving carefully. You have to believe.

Nissan claims they now have battery warmers to ensure decent range in cooler climates. Hmmmmm. Leaf’s product planner didn’t cotton to my suggestion the best market is California, where we have 11-12 percent of the US population living in dense urban areas along the coast, ideal weather and the likelihood of EV charging stations becoming more commonplace, a large population of tech geeks and Green Believers. For good and bad, coastal California is nearly a separate nation, and a huge market. Surely the EV beachheads will be Silicon Valley and up the peninsula to San Francisco and across the Golden Gate to south Marin, and parts of LA’s west side, from Malibu to Brentwood down through San Diego. Other than Paris, no place else on earth will be so welcoming of EVs.

Home charging on the right, rapid charging on the left.

Jules Verne Conundrum

The other series of issues and conundrums Leaf immediately raises? What Jules Verne flights of fancy come along?

What about long-distance travel? Do we all still get on jets that burn the equivalent of kerosene if we want to travel from Santa Monica to San Francisco?

Do we build high-speed rails along the west and east coasts, with attendant and necessary improvements in the rail system itself? Years ago I rode the American-European Express from Chicago to DC, and even in my perfectly restored Pullman sleeper cabin, I could hardly sleep at all because the American rail system is crude, intended only to transport vast amounts of freight. Good luck running a high-speed train on those shoddy rails.

Do we all ride in Mag-Lev trains cross-country? Really? High-speed trains are heavily subsidized in Europe, and the Japanese trains only turn profit because the debt was written down to zero in the Eighties when Japan was flush with cash.

How do we Angelenos take romantic weekend trips to the Central Coast wine country? Do we go by train? Or do we hope Elon Musk is not telling tales about his water-cooled batteries that will provide 300 miles of range? What about people living in more remote areas, like the California Central Valley? How do they ever get off their farms or out of their little towns?

This is the Jules Verne Conundrum. For EVs to be more than nicely engineered novelty items and conversation-starters with Cal Tech professors, a century of engineering, development and infrastructure built around liquid fuels will need to be at least modified if not supplanted. Even guys at Nissan will readily admit that there’s much to be said for the energy contained in a gallon of 87 octane, and the incredible efficiency that have been and can be achieved with two-, three-, and four-cylinder gas and Diesel engines. Not tough to see a Fiat TwinAir acting like a campsite generator, recharging the batteries of a Volt-like hybrid that achieves extremely high levels of efficiency. Audi and VW argue that if Clean Diesel powered 30 percent of the US passenger car fleet, the US would be free of Saudi oil. And clearly the Prius is still the best current answer, as it feeds off the known infrastructure yet uses motor-generators to extend mileage. On a recent trip to the airport, the cabbie lamented the passing of the Ford Crown Vics he loves so much, but he said the Prius we were in delivers 40+ mpg day in, day out, and believe me this guy did not drive like a Marin County Prius owner; he worked that drivetrain within an inch of its life.

Conclusion

Does Leaf work well as a car? Yes, it does. Can it serve as your only car? Only if your employer has a recharging station available, and only if you’re willing to use planes and trains for long trips. Otherwise, you’ll need a gas-powered car in the garage for anything more than strict commutes and around-town schlepping.

Photovoltaic spoiler

Leaf Positives

• Clean, zero emissions, no tailpipe
• Quiet, and soothing to drive
• Well made, and should prove reliable
• Delivers advertised 80-mile range even with AC blasting in 100F weather
• Charge it overnight at home and one can easily commute five days a week and never see another gas station, ever
• Groovy photovoltaic panel built into the spoiler to power the 12-Volt systems inside the car–including your phone charger
• Cal Tech professors give you the thumbs up and wish they could be you
• You feel like you’re part of a great societal adventure, even if perhaps you’re not

Leaf Negatives

• Public charging infrastructure is woefully lacking, nearly laughable
• Can’t serve as anything more than a commuter car, or car for errands–in other words, a shopping cart for use in the neighborhood
• Weekend trips to beautiful places more than 80 miles away are not within the realm of possibility, unless the hotel has a mighty good charger
• Pleasure driving in places like the wine country would be fraught with anxiety, as 80-mile range is eaten up quickly in open terrain–unless a winery that serves lunch also adds a rapid-charging station to attract loads of visitors at noontime seeking a recharge with their pizza and wine
• MSRP is 35 grand, though the government offers generous incentives at the moment. Even at the government-subsidized price, for the same money you can buy both a Corolla and a Kia Rio, so two for the price of one Leaf
• Which means, in short, you need to be a Green Believer for the Leaf to make sense

And now a gauge for those readers who are definitely Green. I’m not a kumbaya sort of guy, yet I like the Leaf. I think anthropomorphic global warming is a scam for Kleiner-Perkins, Goldman Sachs and others to set up a carbon exchange and fleece us, but I could make good use of a Leaf in my beach neighborhood if the HOA puts in that rapid charger at the clubhouse. I think we should have sucked every drop of oil out of Iraq to pay for the war rather than let the Godless Chinese have it, but I also think finding other sources of energy and cutting ties to the Middle East makes great sense for national security—and EVs charged with electricity produced from US-based sources like natural gas or hydro or even dirty old coal can help. So the whole save-the-planet argument doesn’t work with me, though I’m sure it does for most Leaf early adopters. The week after my Leaf went back, I attended a Porsche consumer event and thoroughly enjoyed blasting off in a Porsche Panamera Turbo, guilt-free.

For Green Believers reading this, take the above hyperbole as a measuring stick. I’m not at all like you, yet I still appreciate the Leaf and can imagine EVs playing some role in the US fleet of passenger cars, most likely in coastal California where climate, culture and growing infrastructure can help matters along. For my simple daily life, an EV could work, so long as I have a gas-powered car for road trips and more extensive journeys in Southern California—I must visit Opolo Vineyards in Paso Robles at least once a year.

For that daily life, I’d much prefer a Nissan Leaf Pod, a rolling box with highly versatile seating and cargo. Consider it a modern Japanese interpretation of Ford compact work vans of the Sixties, which were literally rolling boxes with minimal overhangs. Imagine something like the original Scion xB, which had stubby overhangs, massive interior room, and was easy to thread in tight beach neighborhoods, with four adults on-board. Give me a funk hauler like that, with electrical drive. Best of all, without the heat sink of a gasoline engine, you could push the windshield far forward to make the vehicle really look like a pod, frontal crash zones maintained, of course.

The price? Well, 35 large is a bit stiff, so only Green Believers will pay, even with the federal subsidies that bring the price down into Camry/Accord/Altima range. Eventually a product must turn a profit without government subsidy, or at least that’s what we unreconstructed adherents of Adam Smith certainly believe.

No one thought a real hybrid could be produced for a reasonable price, until Toyota did it and sold them by the hundreds of thousands. Honestly, I hope Leaf and EVs have a similar trajectory, but EVs do not feed off the existing liquid-fuels infrastructure as a hybrid does.

I kinda like Leaf, and maybe EV ownership would make me feel better while burning vast amounts of hydrocarbons with over-powered German sports cars.