The City of Sydney has taken delivery of ten Nissan Leaf. According to Nissan, this represents the single largest order of Leaf electric vehicles in Australia.

Nissan said the order replaces ten Toyota Prius that were part of the city’s former fleet, and will be used by a range of city employees, including building and health inspectors, town planners and engineers.

“They represent the first mass-produced, zero tail-pipe-emissions vehicles on the planet. We are the number one provider of that. Really, there is no emission from this vehicle as it is going down the road,” said William F. Peffer Jr., Managing Director and CEO of Nissan Australia after handing the cars over to City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore.

The City of Sydney became the first council in Australia to achieve formal certification as carbon-neutral under the National Carbon Offset Standard in November 2011.

The City said it has installed seven electric charging stations at its public parking stations in Kings Cross and Goulburn Street.

Carbon emissions from charging the electric vehicles will be offset by zero-carbon electricity produced by solar panels installed on City buildings.

Sidney is installing a total of 5,500 solar panels on 30 of its buildings, including Town Hall House, public buildings, major depots and additional solar panels for electric vehicle charging offsets; this represents the largest building-mounted solar installation in Australia.

“The other thing I hope it will do is to set an example to tiers of government, I’d like to see the federal government fleet in Canberra, I’d like to see the state government fleet in Macquarie Street using sustainable vehicles,” said Moore.

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Holden, a long-running Australian vehicle company is owned by General Motors, and is one of GM’s nine global design centers.

While the Aussie car company’s 42 model lineup stemming from four body styles for domestic and export sales, they aren’t all clones or virtual copies of GM products. The Volt, as well as several other models, is a model name familiar to the U.S. market as a Chevrolet product.

The Holden Volt was the first extended-range electric vehicle (E-REV) to hit the Australian market according to the company.

“We believe electric vehicles will be an important part of our ongoing strategy to improve the fuel efficiency and environmental footprint of the Telstra fleet,” said Telstra national fleet manager, Brendan Stooke.

“We already run a number of fuel-efficient and alternative fuel vehicles on the fleet, but this will be Telstra’s first experience with electric cars and we look forward to using the technology to great effect,” he said.

Holden’s national fleet director, George Lukas, said in statement that businesses large and small have expressed interest in the Volt.

“Some fleets see Volt as a great hero vehicle and it certainly looks great with a livery, like the Telstra design. Other fleets have more interest in developing an understanding of how they might use electric cars in the future, what kind of infrastructure they need to implement and how Volt might help them to meet their carbon reduction targets.”

Holden Volt Electricity Game

Some countries are notably more progressive in some areas of life philosophies, with citizens willingly accepting what people in the U.S. have long-held reservations over.

However, it seems that Australians are reluctant to adopt the notion of electric vehicles as mainstream vehicles, just like we as a whole in the U.S. continue to exhibit skepticism over EVs.

To combat the trepidation, Holden created what it called the Volt Electricity Game, which gave the Australian public the opportunity to test, drive the Volt as well as test their skills with a giant Volt “buzz wire game.”

The Volt “isn’t what many people might expect from driving an electric car,” said Holden Marketing Manager for Small, Medium and Electric Cars, Emma Pinwill last month.

Based on the game played in the Australian version of Big Brother House, where housemate Layla Subritsky won her own Volt, the Holden Volt buzz wire game is a giant 2 meters (6.5 feet) high by 5.2 meters (17 feet) long.

Visitors to the Volt display were challenged at four events in December of last year to complete the game in the fastest time, with prizes awarded hourly. The person with the fastest time for each day won an iPad mini.

“To address those ‘electric car’ misconceptions and showcase Holden’s first electric car, we’re taking Volt on a roadshow so people can experience it for themselves” said Pinwill. “We’ll have some fun too while the car is on show with our purpose-built Volt Electricity Game.”

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