Nissan Leaf Open Car

Looks like a Nissan Leaf had an encounter with a low bridge…

Nope, just a design team given free rein to do whatever they pleased to celebrate 100,000 electric hatchbacks sold in Japan since the Leaf’s debut in 2010.

That missing roof makes the Leaf Open Car concept one of only a handful of all-electric open tops, alongside Tesla’s Roadster.

How hard is it to chop the top off a Leaf, then?

Surprisingly easy. Or rather, it is when you’re working with a near-unlimited budget and have no immediate plans to roll it out to mass production – so no need to worry about crash protection and structural rigidity.

With no folding roof to find room for at the back, this really is an open car – so you’re not going to want to drive it on rainy days. Nissan has also ditched the rear doors and swapped the bench seat in the back for a 2+2 layout. Squint and it’s practically a Porsche 911. Sort of.

Any other differences between this and a real Leaf?

Mechanically this concept is identical to the road-going car, driven by an electric motor and powered by a 40kWh battery. Ditching the roof might make it lighter, but aerodynamic drag means a roadworthy version would probably only match the regular model’s 177 miles of electric range. It has the same ProPilot semi-autonomous driving mode and self-parking features too.

So is there a chance of this actually being driveable?

At the moment it’s strictly in concept form. But with Nissan’s 370Z convertible now a little long in the tooth, you can never say never to a no-roof Leaf…

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Fer-rare-ri

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Jet set spilly

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Wireless wonder

It seems wireless charging ain’t just for your smartphone any more: BMW is the first car company out of the gate with factory-fitted inductive charging, letting you top up your 530e iPerformance hybrid in less than four hours without having to wrestle with a big old cable.