Investments to produce batteries at Nissan’s US car plant site in Tennessee would exceed US$1bn, accounting for the bulk of the government loans it was granted last month, a senior Nissan Motor executive has said.

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Product planning head Andy Palmer said at the Reuters Japan Investment Summit on Wednesday that the Smyrna, Tennessee, site would house three “modules”, equivalent to production of 54,000 battery units, with each module costing $350m.


Nissan would receive $1.6bn in subsidised loans from the US government to build a battery assembly facility and retool an existing line to build a new electric car at Smyrna starting in 2012. It aims to build up to 150,000 electric vehicles there a year.


Nissan has also announced plans to build batteries in Japan and is negotiating with several governments for a site in Europe.

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