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Chevy Bolt meets 2016 Nissan Leaf at LA NEDW event [UPDATE]

The 2015 National Drive Electric Week kicked off this past weekend with events happening all around the world. Our friends from Plug In America (PIA) send us some notes and pictures from one of the larger events in Los Angeles, CA. This event was special because it saw the debut of the 2016 Nissan Leaf and the west coast debut of the Chevy Bolt concept. The two electric vehicles were in the same place at the same time for the first time ever. Besides that little bit of electric vehicle history, the organizers helped facilitate 800 test drives, PIA co-founder Zan Dubin Scott told AutoblogGreen. The city of Los Angeles also gave proclamations to movie director Chris Paine (Who Killed The Electric Car? and Revenge Of The Electric Car) and the three national organizers of Drive Electric Week: PIA, the Sierra Club and the Electric Auto Association. Speakers at the event included names that should be familiar to AutoblogGreen readers: California state senator Kevin de Leon, race car driver Leilani Munter, and Dave Barthmuss of General Motors, among others. Joel Levin, the executive director of Plug In America, said during his speech that, "Electric cars are changing the world. Every time one of these vehicles gets sold, our air gets a little cleaner. We will take a big bite out of climate change. Our economy will not be subject to wild swings in gas prices. And we will not be involved in foreign wars over oil." Tell us about your own NEDW events (that happened already or are about to happen) in the Comments below. UPDATE: We received the text of Andrew Speaker's comments at the event. Speaker is Nissan's director of Electric Vehicle (EV) Sales & Marketing. We've included them below. Thank you, and good afternoon! On behalf of Nissan, we are proud to sponsor National Drive Electric Week, and we're excited to be able to celebrate it here in Los Angeles with all of you. This is actually my first National Drive Electric Week event, and I am inspired by the level of enthusiasm here today, and seeing everyone's passion for electric vehicles first hand. Nissan has had some big news in the last few days with the introduction of the 2016 Nissan LEAF, which is the world's first affordable electric car to get more than 100 miles of range on a single charge. The 2016 LEAF offers a new 30 kWh battery with an EPA-rated 107 miles of range... and its making its global debut here in Los Angeles.

Honda, Nissan and Mazda recalling 3 million vehicles for airbag inflators

Three million more vehicles can be added to the worldwide tally to be repaired for the faulty airbag inflators supplied by Takata. Honda, Nissan, and Mazda have all issued recalls to replace the bad part, including about 1.2 million of them in North America. NHTSA has been investigating all three companies, plus Chrysler and Toyota, for potentially affected vehicles.
Honda is recalling roughly 1.02 million Civic, CR-V, Odyssey and Element models In North America, built between April 2000 and October 2002. Mazda needs to repair 14,794 units of the RX-8 and Mazda6, and Nissan has 228,000 vehicles in North America to be fixed.
Chrysler is also starting what it calls a "regional field action" to replace the inflators in the 2006 Dodge Charger, according to a company spokesperson. The company says that it has not yet found the problem in any of its vehicles, but it's being done "out of an abundance of caution." The final number of Chargers affected will be announced later this week.

Nissan would love to build an all-electric GT-R

As the current Nissan GT-R gets older, rumors seem to be popping up with increasing frequency about what tech might be in store for the next generation. Hopping right over all of that speculation, one Nissan exec is now talking about his dreams for the company's halo model even further into the future. Regardless of whether a hybrid GT-R could be on the way, European EV Director Gareth Dunsmore thinks a fully electric version could happen one day. "I can't see a technical reason why we wouldn't be able to implement electric vehicle technology in something like a performance vehicle," Dunsmore said to Top Gear. Although don't get too excited yet, Godzilla fans. "We can't build an electric GT-R today," he admitted. "But do I want to? I'd love to." According to Dunsmore, there're still many steps before the GT-R could go fully electric. The team and Nissan would need to prove than an EV could really take on the best performance cars out there. "It needs to be a world beater," he said to Top Gear. The dream actually echoes rumors from years ago. As far back as 2010, Nissan was reportedly at least toying with the idea of making the GT-R into an EV, among some other options. The concern then was that Godzilla might be silenced by tightening emissions standards. In 2010, an electric GT-R was probably still too avant-garde to actually happen, but things have changed. A Tesla Model S in Ludicrous mode can hit 60 in a claimed 2.8 seconds, and it's not designed to be a laser-focused sports car. Imagine what could be possible, if Nissan aimed a production EV solely for performance.