It's a sad day for Nissan

by Mark Yannone

While the world is looking for affordable cars that will run on affordable and available energy, Nissan is building cars priced higher than some two-story houses and that will run on fuel that won't be any better or any worse than gasoline in terms of price, availability, and emissions. Congratulations. Do you suppose that thinking might explain the near bankruptcy?

On the other hand, Nissan has plans to produce an electric car . . . eventually . . . once they produce a battery. There's no point in displaying a picture of a sleek Nissan electric car yet, so they don't. Would you like to see a picture of a 460 hp, 4 WD Nissan gas-guzzler instead? No? Neither would I.

Here's what they have to say about their electric car plans:

[Excerpt] Nissan is particularly optimistic about advances in the battery technology critical for plug-in hybrids. Nissan chief executive officer Carlos Ghosn says Nissan is about to produce a lithium-ion battery within its alliance with France's Renault.

"We consider it practically as a core business," Ghosn said last November at the Los Angeles auto show.

"We have signed an agreement with NEC Corp. Nissan-Renault-NEC are working together on a lithium-ion battery, and the lithium-ion battery is going to allow us to reach a level of performance on the electric car which we think is going to be acceptable to most users.

"We think we are near a solution which is going to allow a mass marketing of the [electric] car."

Early in March at the Geneva auto show, Nissan officials said they are, indeed, moving full speed ahead with plans to introduce a pure electric car in 2010.

In New York, Thormann said fleet customers in Japan and the United States will see the electric car first. After fleet testing, Nissan will market the electric car worldwide in 2012 to retail customers.

Reports also indicate that Nissan will sell the next-generation Cube in North America and some version of the Denki would suggest that the electric vehicle will be part of the Cube lineup. The production vehicle is expected to have a daily range of 160 kilometres and an estimated top speed of 120 km/h. A complete recharge of the lithium-ion battery pack, all four batteries each with 24 cells, will take about eight hours.

"If you look at the number of kilometres people drive per day to commute, more than 90 per cent of the people do less than 100 kilometres a day," Thormann says. "There is a huge, huge potential there for EVs."

Thormann does say the cost of developing all these alternative power trains is a burden at a time when the U.S. market is weak and expected to get weaker. [Source]

Hang on to that thought: there is a huge, huge potential for EVs.

Thanks for the metric statistics. I'm sure consumers who think in terms of miles will find the kilometer-based reports very handy.