The Olympics is an advertising dream for many companies since the games basically offer worldwide publicity. The buildup to the 2012 London games is still quite a long way but that’s not stopping automakers to get or create some buzz for themselves.

BMW won the bidding war to supply vehicles to the games and is set to provide 4000 vehicles. Only a small portion of those 4000 vehicles will be electric and that doesn’t quite sit well for Nissan who was one of the rival bidders.

Nissan intends to provide the Leaf to constiture at least half of the fleet had they won the bid.

“As part of our proposition, more than half of the vehicles we were going to supply would have been Leafs,” said a Nissan spokesperson. “Through LOCOGs decision, London has missed out on a significant opportunity to build confidence in electric vehicles in the UK.

Source: Autocar

Nissan just unveiled its latest offering in a growing worldwide fleet of eco vehicles. Nissan Chief Carlos Ghosn rolled in style as he drove the company’s zero-emission electric car on stage for its official unveiling.

Nothing fancy with the car, just a plain sporty blue hatchback. This, we think is a plus given that other eco cars are trying out fancy eco designs that make people who drive them stand out. Some people just want to drive normal looking cars.

Quite an interesting name though – the Leaf. The car is pegged to go 100 miles on a single batter charge. Full charging time is seven hours though a 30 minute quick charge can get bring battery life to 80%. Makes you wonder why it’d take 6.5 hours to get that last 20%.

Prices are expected to be in a competitive range though we expect it to cost just a bit more than traditional gas-powered cars.

Production is pegged for an annual run of 50,000 units which includes units to be exported to US and Europe. The first run will come out of Nissan’s plant in Yokohama. Nissan schedules the car to be on sale in Japan, the U.S. and Europe next year.