Obama administration goes all in with electric car Volt and Leaf buy

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The Obama administration is buying 116 new cars, which in itself is not newsworthy, but there’s a twist to the new car purchase.

The new cars are the plug in electric kind.

To be exact the federal government is buying 101 Chevy Volts, ten all electric Nissan Leafs, and five Think City EVs.

To charge up all of these new plug in electric cars the government plans on installing charging stations in Washington, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco.

And just in case you are curious a new Chevrolet Volt runs about $40K while a Leaf cost just over $30K. No word on how much the Fed is paying for the cars, but the Volt is sold out through the end of the year according to General Motors.

“Diversifying our transportation fleet with hybrids, electric vehicles and other alternative-fuel vehicles is a critical element in President Obama’s long-term plan to break our dependence on foreign oil and invest in America’s growing clean energy economy,” Energy Department Secretary Steven Chu.

The electric cars will save almost 29,000 gallons of gasoline per year, which equates to saving  taxpayers an estimated $116,000 in fuel cost and and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 257 metric tons, according to GSA administrator Martha Johnson.

But this is just a drop in the bucket as the Obama administration wants to buy a total of 1 million plug-in electric vehicles by 2015.

Check out our first drive of the Nissan Leaf below:

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