Nissan to go ‘mainstream’ with electric cars

NISSAN is confident it will carve out a significant share of the forthcoming electric-vehicle market in Australia with a model that will maximise appeal to mainstream consumers.

Nissan Motor Co (Australia) managing director and CEO Dan Thompson told GoAuto at the Melbourne International Motor Show last week that he was unconcerned about ensuring Nissan was the first brand to offer an EV Down Under, preferring instead to proclaim that the inaugural model – due in 2012 – would be more relevant to Australian consumers than some of its rivals.

“We’re not interested in rushing, or being first to market,” Mr Thompson said. “What we’re interested in is leading the market from a mass-production and mass-volume perspective. So when we bring an EV to this market in 2012 it will be a proper small vehicle, a five-seat vehicle, similar size to a Tiida today for us.

“It will not be a city car or a small car. It will be a unique product that any family can enjoy … From a global perspective and also here locally, that’s the space that we want to occupy – being the global mass-market leader for EVs.”

Left: Nissan Mixim concept and Nissan Australia managing director and CEO Dan Thompson.

Having said that, Mr Thompson predicted that sales volumes would be modest in the EV’s first few years on sale.

“In the short- and mid-term when we launch the vehicles in 2012, it will very much be small volumes. It will take many years, I think, for consumer acceptance and also infrastructure to be established, to be more mainstream.

“But I can see probably in 2020 for us, that it could represent 10 per cent of our volume here locally. Not the one vehicle but the EV vehicle range.” According to Mr Thompson, the EV will be a standalone new product carrying a unique nameplate that was unrelated to an existing or familiar model series, such as Tiida or Pulsar. He said he was uncertain which platform it would use, but said it was likely to be the small-car architecture shared with Renault.

“(It will be) shared development, but a unique product. We intend, as we’ve always done under the alliance, to keep the two brands separate from the front end – from a sales and marketing and distribution perspective – but finding synergies certainly on the back end with R&D and leveraging (battery partner) NEC,” he said.

Renault Australia managing director Rudi Koenig told GoAuto at the Melbourne show that the French brand would, internationally, offer four models in its electric vehicle range from 2011.

However, a launch date for its version of the EV into Australia was still to be decided.

“Like everything else, Renault being a global company, we are pushing very hard … it depends on market expectations. In Australia, the expectation is that the market will be very small initially. We will be limited very much to government fleet.

“What Renault is looking at internationally is four models in its electric vehicle range from 2011 in Europe … I’m pushing hard to get electric in our range, from our next generation of product, which comes in just after 2011.

“It may be the year after (that) we get electric, which is in line with what everyone is telling you today about timing for electric in Australia.” Last week, the Renault-Nissan Alliance announced they were collaborating with UK company Elektromotive to accelerate the installation of charging networks for EVs in cities worldwide. The two parties will share information on EV development and energy supply on a global scale, and undertake education programs and develop incentive schemes to attract EV purchasers.

Elektromotive began developing plug-in hybrid and pure EV charging station technology in 2003 and, since 2006, has installed more than 40 charging bays in London and another 40 in other UK cities.

As previously reported, Renault-Nissan also has a formal connection overseas with EV infrastructure provider Better Place, which is looking to establish a network in Australia in 2011. However, Mr Koenig said Renault was still determining its global infrastructure requirements.

“We’re not committing to anything at this stage,” he said. “We’re still working on it. Renault, with everything, it will depend on where their priorities are. If they can sell 200 electric cars in Australia, or they can sell 20,000 somewhere else … It will be the same with Better Place, where they’re going to put their dollars.

“My job is to make sure that Paris is aware that Renault Australia’s an important part of the EV opportunities, and that’s what we’re working on right now.” Nissan’s forthcoming EV is one of 15 new products scheduled for Australia over the next four years as the Japanese brand attempts to raise its market share to 10 per cent. Among the volume-building entrants will be a series of light-commercial vans, which Mr Thompson confirmed would be established here.

“Certainly, in today’s financial times all of the future product plans are coming under much greater scrutiny, and it’s a reality that bringing additional product will become more of a challenge,” Mr Thompson said. “But at this point, we’re still secure with our future here.”

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