Heathrow, the U.K.'s biggest and busiest airport, has turned to the Nissan Leaf as part of its plans to inspire a new culture of electric car usage across its vast site. The airport has initially added 17 all-electric Leafs to its fleet, with 12 being operated airside by teams, including security and baggage and another five being used as pool cars.

The move has been made in line with the company's commitment that all cars and small vans in its own fleet are electric or plug-in hybrid by the end of 2020, just one of the steps Heathrow is taking to reduce emissions and improve local air quality.

By introducing the vehicles in highly visible airside roles and operating them successfully, it hopes to encourage the many third parties that operate thousands of vehicles around the Heathrow campus to follow suit.

In all, some 8,000 vehicles are licensed to operate airside at Heathrow and Heathrow is setting ambitious targets to encourage third parties to replace these with zero-emission all-electric vehicles, which will help reduce the airport's carbon footprint. Nissan forged the Electric Vehicle (EV) market in 2010 with the launch of the first generation Nissan Leaf. Fast forward to 2017 and it remains the world's best-selling EV, with more than 260,000 on the road globally.

With a focus on bringing Intelligent Mobility solutions to the masses, Nissan recently introduced a new 30kWh battery model that delivers 26 percent more range versus the previous generation model, and up to 249km of driving range on a single charge.