Nissan Motor, which earlier this week announced plans for two battery plants in Europe, also aims to be the top seller of electric vehicles in the US, although it plans to hedge its bets there by producing hybrids as well as EVs.
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Senior vice president Andy Palmer told reporters the company would use a US$1.6bn US loan to retool its Tennessee plant so hybrids and other fuel-efficient models could be made on the same line as battery-powered cars to keep from wasting capacity. Electric vehicle assembly would be phased in “to avoid under-utilising the plant while the market is developing,” he added.
Palmer, head of the company’s electric vehicle programme, told Bloomberg News that EVs were an “emerging” market and that Nissan planned to start making them in the US by 2012. The US loan would also fund a lithium-ion battery factory next to the Smyrna plant that would make packs for as many as 200,000 cars a year.
Flexibility to make different types of advanced cars on one line would let demand “drive the optimum production balance between zero emission and low emission vehicles,” added Palmer.
According to Advanced Automotive Batteries, a consulting firm in California, initial US demand would be at least 7,500 EVs, sold in model years 2011 through 2013, along with about 60,000 plug-in hybrid cars, due to requirements in California under its zero emissions vehicle programme.
Last month Nissan, along with Ford and Tesla, was among the first companies to benefit from the US Energy Department’s programme to provide $25bn in low cost loans to fund production of highly fuel efficient vehicles.
Nissan said it would use the federal cash to refurbish its Smyrna factory. The plant has about 3,900 employees and capacity to make up to 550,000 cars and light trucks annually, including the hybrid Altima sedan.
A version of the electric car Nissan will eventually build at the Smyrna plant is to be unveiled in Japan next month. The company said the model would have a range of 100 miles (160km) and that limited sales begin in Japan and the US next year.
