American graduate student Allison Howard, pictured above, is the recipient of the 100,000th electric vehicle sold from the Renault-Nissan Alliance, the Nissan Leaf. The milestone comes 31 months after the group delivered it’s very first EV, a Leaf bought by engineer Olivier Chalouhi in California’s Silicon Valley.

Currently, more than 71,000 people from all over the globe have bought the Leaf, which Nissan says is the best-selling pure electric car in the world. The top markets for the Nissan EV are the United States with close to 30,000 units, Japan with 28,000 units, and Europe with 12,000 units.

The French part of the Alliance, Renault, has sold approximately 30,000 electric vehicles since its first model, the Kangoo Van Z.E., went on sale in late 2011, and which was followed up by Fluence Z.E. saloon, the two-seat commuter vehicle Twizy, and the ZOE supermini that was launched in Europe earlier this year.

The automotive group says that electric cars from Renault and Nissan have driven approximately 841 million zero-emission kilometers or more 20,000 times the circle of earth, stating that it represents “represent 53 million liters of oil saved and 124 million kg of CO2 that have not been emitted”, though, the company doesn’t say if it takes into account the energy and CO2 emissions from the creation of electricity.

“The age of the mainstream zero-emission vehicle is here,” said Renault-Nissan Alliance Chairman and CEO Carlos Ghosn. “We expect demand to keep growing as the charging infrastructure develops – and we remain 100% committed to zero-emission technology for the long term.”

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