YOKOHAMA, Japan, (Reuters) - Over the past few years, Eiji Makino has met with heads of state, governors and mayors around the globe pursuing an unconventional strategy for Nissan's new electric car, the Leaf: lining up support for the model before it was even on the road.
Electric cars need to recharge around town and a growing number of governments, seeking to reduce oil dependence and clean up the environment, have agreed to subsidise that kind of infrastructure.
The Nissan-Renault car alliance put together more than 80
such agreements across five continents, with the first batch of its zero-emission cars reaching customers only this month.
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| Nissan Motor Co.Chief Operating Officer Toshiyuki Shiga announces the lauch of the all-new Nissan LEAF electric vehicle during a press preview at the company's headquarters in Yokohama, suburban Tokyo on December 3 |
"At first we had no clue which regions to attack," Makino, who was put in charge of Nissan Motor's strategy for electric vehicles in 2008, said at the company's global headquarters in the Japanese port city of Yokohama. "Portugal was the first partnership we signed, and that made sense because they were promoting renewable energy."
Later he reached a pact with China, which has long relied
on low-grade coal to make cheap electricity and had not been known for its commitments to green solutions. "It was completely unexpected," Makino said.
Many people may be surprised by the coming green car revolution.
Nissan is not the first to roll out electric vehicles, which plug into an electric outlet to charge the battery and have an electric motor instead of an internal combustion engine.
Mitsubishi Motors came out last year with the egg-shaped i-MiEV, while niche newcomer Tesla Motors put its Roadster hot-rod out in 2008. But sales of those cars are still in the thousands.
What Nissan and its French partner Renault SA are doing is something no other auto maker has attempted before: getting governments and infrastructure providers involved on a global scale from the start to create, for the first time ever, a sizeable market for zero-emission vehicles.
If all goes to plan, this month's launch of the Leaf, which gets the mileage equivalent of 99 miles per gallon, will mark a major milestone in the history of the automobile and the future of the internal combustion engine.
It's also a crucial step in the Franco-Japanese pair's attempt to win green points and lift their brand images after years of trailing rivals such as Toyota , Honda and Volkswagen -- a weakness that has grated at management for years.
The car is being competitively priced to match up with conventional cars, taking into account lower running costs.
The five-seater Leaf hatchback is expected to cost just under 3 million yen after subsidies in Japan, and about 30,000 euros in European countries. The mid-sized vehicle will be about $25,000 in the United States with a federal tax credit, and as low as $20,280 in California, which will offer further credits.
The sticker price on General Motors' Volt, a plug-in hybrid rolling out this month that will compete with the Leaf, will be around $41,000.
But how good is the Leaf on a spin around the block?
On two test drives -- on the streets of Lisbon and at Nissan's proving ground near Yokohama -- the authors were impressed with the instant engine torque and acceleration of a car with a maximum speed of 145 kilometres an hour. Packing no piston-pumping engine, the car rode silently and smoothly.
In Saitama, a city just north of Tokyo, residents who had won an online lottery to test-drive the Leaf also gave it a thumbs-up. "I knew it was going to be quiet because I'd been in other EVs before," said Kazuhiro Futamura, a 36-year-old businessman. "But the acceleration, steering, response - it was linear, if you know what I mean. I thought that was quite impressive," said Futamura, who had also ridden in BMW's experimental Mini E and the i-MiEV.
At Nissan's proving ground in Oppama, a stone's throw from the factory that began building the Leaf in October, racing driver Seiji Ara said it was obvious the engineers had paid close attention to the ease and precision of how the car handles. |
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