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World's cheapest Nissan Leaf costs just $9,460

If you thought electric vehicles were expensive, head on over to Rotterdam in the Netherlands. There, you can buy a Nissan Leaf for the amazingly low price of just 7,450 euros ($9,460 US). Or, if a practical delivery van is more your style, check out the Nissan e-NV200 Visia Flex, which is absurdly priced at 4,950 euros ($6,400). Now, you might be thinking, those prices don't seem right, and this isn't a case of Nissan slashing the price like someone in I Know What You Did Last Summer. Instead, these deals are already and unsurprisingly being called the "world's best EV incentives." The great deals - available to businesses only – are due to generous national and local government incentives that are designed to take dirty vehicles off the road. Things like scrappage incentives (worth 2,500 euros, or $3,240) and free parking for EVs as well as home charger incentives stack up until they bring the price of a new EV down to the levels listed above. Jordi Vila, the managing director for Nissan Netherlands, told Automotive World that, "By scrapping older vehicles and incentivising buyers to replace them with zero-emission electric vehicles, Rotterdam is taking a huge step in improving air quality." As great as these deals are, it turns out that most car buyers are unaware of EV incentives. This is too bad, since there is a short but interesting history of tremendous deals on plug-in vehicles, like the $10,000 discount on the Mitsubishi i-MiEV (or the $69/month lease on that thing). For pure "dollars off" value, though, nothing beats the $30,000 in total incentives that maybe be available in some Japanese prefectures for hydrogen vehicles, which might expand all the way to free H2 cars.

The UK votes for Brexit and it will impact automakers

It's the first morning after the United Kingdom voted for what's become known as Brexit – that is, to leave the European Union and its tariff-free internal market. Now begins a two-year process in which the UK will have to negotiate with the rest of the EU trading bloc, which is its largest export market, about many things. One of them may be tariffs, and that could severely impact any automaker that builds cars in the UK. This doesn't just mean companies that you think of as British, like Mini and Jaguar. Both of those automakers are owned by foreign companies, incidentally. Mini and Rolls-Royce are owned by BMW, Jaguar and Land Rover by Tata Motors of India, and Bentley by the VW Group. Many other automakers produce cars in the UK for sale within that country and also export to the EU. Tariffs could damage the profits of each of these companies, and perhaps cause them to shift manufacturing out of the UK, significantly damaging the country's resurgent manufacturing industry. Autonews Europe dug up some interesting numbers on that last point. Nissan, the country's second-largest auto producer, builds 475k or so cars in the UK but the vast majority are sent abroad. Toyota built 190k cars last year in Britain, of which 75 percent went to the EU and just 10 percent were sold in the country. Investors are skittish at the news. The value of the pound sterling has plummeted by 8 percent as of this writing, at one point yesterday reaching levels not seen since 1985. Shares at Tata Motors, which counts Jaguar and Land Rover as bright jewels in its portfolio, were off by nearly 12 percent according to Autonews Europe. So what happens next? No one's terribly sure, although the feeling seems to be that the jilted EU will impost tariffs of up to 10 percent on UK exports. It's likely that the UK will reciprocate, and thus it'll be more expensive to buy a European-made car in the UK. Both situations will likely negatively affect the country, as both production of new cars and sales to UK consumers will both fall. Evercore Automotive Research figures the combined damage will be roughly $9b in lost profits to automakers, and an as-of-yet unquantified impact on auto production jobs. Perhaps the EU's leaders in Brussels will be in a better mood in two years, and the process won't devolve into a trade war. In the immediate wake of the Brexit vote, though, the mood is grim, the EU leadership is angry, and investors are spooked.

Recharge Wrap-up: BMW, Nissan team up on chargers, CNN loves Tesla Model X

CNN Money calls the Tesla Model X "the new king of crossover SUVs." In its round-up of its favorite luxury SUVs of 2015, CNN places the electric ute on the top of its list. The Model X's EV powertrain, excellent acceleration and handling and cool design and technology features (including much attention paid to its slick Falcon Wing doors) earn it high praise. See the video above, and read more at CNN Money or from Clean Technica. Tesla has plans to open offices in Korea and South Africa. Tesla has registered in Korea as Tesla Korea Limited under co-CEOs Todd Maron (Tesla general council) and Susan Repo (Tesla Financial Services). It will have an office near Seoul. Tesla is also reportedly opening an office in South Africa in January, with GreenCape CEO Evan Rice acting as Business Development Manager. Rice will work to build a market for Tesla's PowerPack stationary energy storage systems. Read more from Korea Times, from htxt and from Teslarati. BMW and Nissan are partnering to build 120 new fast charging stations in the US. The public, 50-kW DC chargers, operating on the Greenlots charging network, will be deployed in 19 states in order to support Nissan Leaf and BMW i3 drivers, and to help promote EV adoption in the US. The chargers will support both CHAdeMO and SAE Combo charging. "Together with Nissan, we are focused on facilitating longer distance travel so that even more drivers will choose to experience the convenience of e-mobility for themselves," says BMW's Manager of Connected eMobility, Cliff Fietzek. Kia also recently partnered with Greenlots to provide charging for Soul EV drivers. Read more in the press release below. BMW AND NISSAN PARTNER TO DEPLOY DUAL FAST CHARGERS ACROSS THE U.S. TO BENEFIT ELECTRIC VEHICLE DRIVERS • A total of 120 dual-port 50kW DC Fast-charging stations have been installed across 19 states to support longer distance electric vehicle travel for Nissan LEAF and BMW i3 drivers. • These publicly available Greenlots-networked charging stations include both CHAdeMO and CCS (Combo) connectors, suitable for all DC Fast charging-capable electric vehicles in the U.S. WOODCLIFF LAKE, NJ and NASHVILLE, TN - December 21, 2015... BMW and Nissan are joining forces to offer public DC Fast charging at 120 locations across 19 states in an effort to support Nissan LEAF and BMW i3 customers and to promote increased adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) nationwide.