Nissan Leaf Limo arrives for those electric occasions: Motoramic Dash

This is the Motoramic Dash, a daily roundup of the most interesting news in the automotive world.

The electric-powered Nissan Leaf's struggles to find buyers in the United States has been well covered; Nissan thinks it can still sell 20,000 this year, even though it's sales totaled 2,613 through May. Fortunately, there may be new market opportunities for the Leaf, thanks to a Missouri firm's brainstorm of building the first Leaf limousine. Styling, meet profiling.

Spotted by Electric Vehicle News, the conversion was handled by Imperial Coach Builders of Springfield, Mo., a professional limousine builder whose output generally trends toward the stretched Escalade/Hummer/Chrysler 300C range. One can only watch so many Hollywood awards ceremonies with stars arriving in hybrids and stumpy electric cars before wondering if there isn't a better way. As the video below shows, the conversion adds an extra set of seats and some amenities to the Leaf without changing its basic character, although I'm not sure Nissan wants to know how the builders extended the power connections between battery pack and motor.