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Nissan showed off its latest EV prototype today, a slick four-door, five-passenger hatchback that’s good for 100 miles and tells you when and where to charge up. Although it’s just a mule wearing a Tiida body, the car provides the best glimpse yet of the production EV we’ll see for the first time Sunday. Nissan plans to offer an all-electric vehicle in Japan and the United States next year, then roll it out globally in 2012. “Nissan will be a leader in zero-emission vehicles,” Toshiyuki Shiga said in Tokyo, according to Canadian Press. “EV is the answer.” Although most of the major automakers have promised to put EVs on the road within the next few years, Japan’s No. 3 automaker is placing the biggest bet on the technology. CEO Carlos Ghosn has made it clear he believes cars with cords are the future, and he has made developing such vehicles a top priority both within Nissan and Renault, its parent company. The company reportedly plans to build 100,000 EVs within the next two years. The Department of Energy recently loaned Nissan $1.6 billion to retool its factory in Smyrna, Tennessee, to produce electric cars and the batteries to power them. The EV we’ll see Sunday will be built in Japan, and it will feature the drivetrain propelling the prototype Nissan showed off today. Nissan put the 24 kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery under the floor to maximize interior space. The pack powers a Nissan-designed and built electric motor that produces 80 kilowatts (107 horsepower) and 206 pound-feet of torque. Top speed is 140 kilometers per hour (about 87 mph). Nissan’s EV shares its battery with the electric car Renault is working on, but it doesn’t sound like Nissan is following Renault down the swappable-battery road. Nissan didn’t say anything about the recharge time for the pack. But when we drove the first-generation Nissan EV prototype in April, Mark Perry, director of product planning, told us the pack recharges in four hours at 220 volts. Plug it into a 110 and you’re looking at 14 hours. If you’ve got a 440 volt line — and Perry says many businesses do — you can get an 80 percent charge in just 26 minutes. .... |
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