Nissan Motor Co. rolled out its first electric car in San Diego at the headquarters of San Diego Gas & Electric Nov. 19, promising customers that their orders should be ready for delivery by late next year.

The five-passenger Leaf can reach speeds of about 90 mph, and go about 100 miles before its batteries need to be recharged. Though Nissan has yet to set a price for the car, a spokesman said analysts’ estimates of about $30,000 aren’t far off.

Nissan hasn’t set a number on how many Leafs it intends to blow out, but the company has the capacity in Japan to build about 50,000 a year. Nissan is also converting plants in Tennessee for domestic production that should begin in 2012.

“We could increase that number based in demand,” said Tim Gallagher of Nissan North America. “We want to be a mass marketer of electric vehicles.”

Nissan used the expertise at the Nissan Design America facility in San Diego on parts of the car’s design.

SDG&E says the first 1,000 customers to sign up to buy a Leaf will receive a free 220-volt recharging system for their homes.

Another private firm, Electric Transportation Engineering Corp. (eTec) is building electric recharging stations in five cities including 2,500 in San Diego. The firm received $99.8 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, and another $8 million grant from the California Energy Commission to build the first recharging stations.

The Leaf’s advanced lithium-ion batteries would be leased to customers, allowing replacements from anticipated upgraded models. Recharging the batteries at a 220-volt outlet takes from six to eight hours, but longer on a standard home 110-volt outlet. The initial recharging infrastructure here includes 60 fast charging stations which can recharge batteries in 24 minutes.

Leafs also come with a sophisticated monitoring system that lets drivers know not only when their batteries need a recharge but where the closest stations are through the car’s GPS device.

— Mike Allen