As of August 31, 2010, Nissan has finally started taking orders for its electric LEAF sedan. The first-ever all-electric consumer sedan from a major auto-maker, the LEAF (an acronym for Leading, Environmentally friendly, Affordable, Family car) has been so hotly anticipated that Nissan’s reservation list for people who wanted to be first in line when ordering began – in effect, a queue for a queue – accumulated more than 18,000 names, despite the $99 fee for simply being on the list.

Nissan is already accepting payments, though the first vehicles won’t ship till December of 2010. The consumers’ excitement is understandable – this is the first commercially-viable electric automobile on the market. Its closest competitor, the Chevy Volt, is months away, and in many respects is a worse deal: the Volt is expected to have a base price of around $41,000, yet the Leaf costs $33,000 (although there are many government tax breaks and incentives that can shave as much as $7,000 off the base price).

The Leaf has other advantages: it offers a range of up to 100 miles (160 kilometers), well above most Americans’ commuting needs. The Volt, by contrast, has an overall range of 300 miles, but can only drive for 40 miles on the stored electric charge before a gas-powered generator needs to kick in.

The car will be packed with features, including a solar panel on the rear spoiler, an integrated garage door opener, a backup camera, a navigation system and cruise control, fog lights and more. For an additional $700, the car comes with a quick-charge port that can recharge the batteries to 80% capacity in half an hour, instead of overnight as in standard mode – a great convenience when time is at a premium (although Nissan engineers warn that, if overused, quick-charge mode can reduce the lifespan of the car’s batteries by 10%).

Among the new car and truck parts & accessories that  electrical vehicles will need to incorporate, one interesting feature is a noise generator. Electric vehicles are so quiet that this presents a problem for cyclists and pedestrians, especially those who are visually-impaired, since they simply may not hear the car coming. Nissan has developed a system they call Vehicle Sound for Pedestrians (VSP), which will generate low-frequency sound when accelerating and braking.

As an additional service, Nissan has been having professionals visit customers’ homes to make sure that their electrical systems have the capacity to charge their cars.

We in the auto shipping industry can only hope that at some point, auto makers will come up with viable electric tractor-trailers as well.