While most employees can’t wait to leave work sooner, a team of Nissan volunteers came up with a Leaf prototype fitted with a larger battery pack in their free time.

Codenamed “Cocoon”, in reference to the popular sci-fi movie with the same name, the vehicle was developed by a group of engineers at Nissan’s Technical Center in Barcelona (NTCE-S), Spain, and put through its paces in several ECOseries events, where it showcased its increased range.

“It has been a great privilege to work on this project and see our finished prototype race in the ECOseries. We all have a real passion for what we do and being able to work on prototype projects gives us the creative freedom to be as innovative and forward-thinking as we possibly can“, said Senior Engineer at NTCE-S, Dario Fernandez.

Doubling the capacity of the production 24 kWh model, which can be driven for 124 miles (200 km) before needing a recharge, the 48 kWh Leaf won’t be put into production, but it could pave the road for the next generation model. This is expected in 2017 or the year after, with a 60 kWh battery pack, which could increase its range up to 340 miles (547 km), a significant improvement from the 30 kWh variant introduced a few months ago.

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