Nissan Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn unveiled Nissan’s first zero-emission electric vehicle (EV) at the company’s new headquarters in Yokohama, Japan, on Sunday, in the form of a blue hatchback. The hatchback, which is set to go on sale in Japan, the U.S. next year and worldwide from 2012, had a sporty design penned by Nissan designer, Shiro Nakamura, and was the first time the external design of the EV was revealed. Nakamura said the EV was designed to be a real car rather than a futuristic design as Nissan does not intended the Leaf to be a niche car; a sentiment reiterated by Carlos Ghosn.
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YOKOSUKA, Japan – Nissan Motor Co. demonstrated its super-quiet, pure zero-emission electric vehicle (EV) platform on a Versa/Tiida-based prototype earlier today. The prototype uses a 24 kWh compact lithium-ion battery pack located under the vehicle floor to allow for more cabin and luggage space. The battery is recharged while the car is driving by the energy from the braking system, extending the driving range to 160 kilometres (99 miles) under a full charge. A handy navigation map screen on the EV’s dashboard provides a driving radius within range of the car’s charge, so drivers won’t get stranded on the highway. The electric motor powering the EV delivers 80 kW of power and 280 Nm of torque for response and powerful acceleration.
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Nissan have announced an almost €500 million in two plants to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles (EV’s) in the UK and Portugal after having secured grants from the respective governments. Nissan will invest more than €230 million in the plant near Sunderland, north east England, creating hundreds of new jobs in the UK’s recession-hit motor industry. Nissan’s investment is expected to create up to 350 direct jobs in Sunderland. Nissan will build a similar plant in Portugal, though the location of this plant has yet to be decided. Each plant would produce 60,000 batteries a year.
[Source: Reuters]
Nissan are to incorporate the newly developed Dual Injector System in small-displacement petrol engines from as early as 2010. The new systems is similar in theory to “direct-injection” systems, which are difficult to use on small-displacement engines because they require a high-pressure pump that complicates system design and makes component layout less cost-efficient. According to Nissan, the new injector system, which uses one injector per intake port rather than one per cylinder, improves fuel efficiency by up to 4%. The improvement in fuel efficiency is accomplished due to the diameter of the fuel droplets being reduced by 60%. Nissan says the new injector system is easier on the catalyst system, using half the amount of rare metals in the catalyst.
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With China overtaking the United States as the world’s biggest auto market in first half of this year, Nissan Motor Co and Honda Motor Co are planning on increasing production capacity to tap brisk demand in China. A spokesman for Nissan, Japan’s third-largest carmaker, said on Tuesday it will add 1,200 workers and operate three shifts a day, instead of the two shifts currently, to increase production at its joint venture Dongfeng Motor Co’s main factory in the city of Guangzhou from 360,000 units a year to 460,000 units. Nissan does not plan to increase capacity at a separate plant in Hubei province, which can currently roll out 100,000 vehicles a year, but the increased capacity at Guangzhou will result in an increase of about 20 per cent to around 560,000 units a year from October.
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Nissan has opened its Sportscars Shop on the Nurburgring’s new ringboulevard as part of the celebrations surrounding the dedication of the new Nurburgring on July, 9 2009. The Nissan Sportscars Shop will allow visitors to get a taste for motor sport and experience the Japanese company’s expertise as a longstanding manufacturer of sports cars. The Sportscar Shop is open daily from 10:00 A.M. to 8:00 P.M. Visitors will be allowed to browse among Nissan sports cars and lifestyle products or relax in the Nissan lounge. Sports cars include the Nissan GT-R as well as the Nissan GT-R SpecV version, making the Nissan Sportscars Shop currently the only place in Europe where customers and enthusiasts will be able to see this model.
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Carlos Ghosn, the head of Renault and Nissan, has been quoted by French daily Le Monde saying there will be no rebound in car markets in Europe and Japan before 2011 despite the scrappage schemes in Europe that encourage car buyers to trade in older cars for new cars. This has tempered the decline and resulted in a quarterly upturn from the last quarter of 2008 but Ghosn predicts that there will be no recovery in car industry in Europe and Japan until at least the first quarter of 2011.
In terms of year-on-year sales figures, May saw the thirteenth straight month of decline in new car sales in Europe, with only Volkswagen AG and Fiat SpA selling more than last year. Renault, France’s No. 2 carmaker said its vehicle sales in Europe declined by 22 percent during the quarter, worse than the overall 17.2 percent decline European car market!
Amid an industry-wide plunge in vehicle sales, Nissan Motor Co, Japan’s No.3 automaker, has suspended its mid-term business plan named GT 2012, but with the exception of its electric vehicle ambitions. Nissan wants to close the gap with hybrid pioneers Toyota Motor Corp and Honda Motor Co as consumers look increasingly to alternative-fuel vehicles. Together with its French partner, Renault SA, Nissan is aiming to become the first to mass-market pure electric vehicles with a global roll-out in 2012.
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Nissan has received conditionally approval for a $1.6 billion loan by the U.S. Department of Energy. The loan falls under the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program (ATVMLP) that was authorized by Congress under Section 136 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 to accelerate the development of vehicles and technologies that increase U.S. energy independence, create cleaner means of transportation and stimulate the American economy.
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