Nissan has revealed that owners of the Leaf, its 100 percent electric car, have collectively recorded an impressive one billion kilometres on the CarWings telematics system worldwide; saving over 180 million kilograms of CO₂emissions in the process.

This achievement comes almost four years since the Leaf was launched in 2010 as one of the first mass-market, pure-electric vehicles. It is now the best-selling electric vehicle in history, with over 147,000 Leaf vehicles sold globally to date, 31,000 of which have been sold in Europe.

The total kilometres are based on Nissan's Global Data Center (GDC) as of September 30, 2014. The distance and CO₂is gathered only from Nissan Leaf vehicles registered with CarWings, approximately 54 percent of total sales globally.

Thanks to the innovative CarWings telemetry used in the Leaf, Nissan has been able to keep an accurate log of the total distance covered by every Leaf registered with CarWings since the car's launch. Nissan has been recording the kilometres on an online counter and actively involving owners in the count with a series of celebratory videos.

Paul Willcox, chairman for Nissan in Europe, said: "Our aim was to see Nissan Leaf owners registered with our innovative CarWings system amass one billion kilometres by January 2015, and we are absolutely delighted to announce that we have achieved this landmark milestone earlier than anticipated. We would like to thank every single Nissan Leaf owner for helping us in reaching this world-first.

"The Nissan Leaf was the first mass-market family electric vehicle ever built and the owner satisfaction scores are the best in the Nissan range. This huge distance landmark shows that many of our customers are rapidly clocking up kilometres as they enjoy the benefits of quiet, emission free driving."

This Leaf is the best-selling all-electric car in the world. Nissan has since launched its second 100 percent electric vehicle, the e-NV200, a zero emission, compact city van.