Nissan Has Big Hopes For EV's

As Nissan prepares to bring its all electric Leaf to market, a top company executive is downplaying recent studies that show consumers may not be ready to flock to electric vehicles.

"We believe that electric vehicles will compromise ten per cent of the global market by 2020," said Carlos Tavares, Chairman, Nissan Americas, speaking before the Automotive Press Association.

Just last week, J.D. Power and Associates estimated that electric vehicles, hybrids and plug in hybrids combined would only make up 5.2 per cent of vehicle sales by 2020, unless there's a significant increase in the price of gasoline, combined with a significant drop in the price of green technology.

But, Tavares said the study didn't take into account the strong interest in green vehicles worldwide.

"We believe the advent of a zero emission society is a once in a lifetime opportunity to change the industry, the way consumers drive and how vehicles are brought to market," he said. 

Electric vehicle demand in the United States, Tavares said, would be strong enough to take up 6.5 per cent of the market by 2020.

Nissan has about twenty thousand orders for the Leaf, which launches by the end of they year.  Must buyers, says Tavares, are new to the brand.

"So far it's mostly high income households," Tavares said.  "They have certainly more than one car.  Ninety per cent of them don't have a Nissan."

Nissan will follow up on the Leaf with an electrically powered commercial van, and an electric vehicle for the Infiniti brand, which will be shown later this month at the Los Angeles Auto Show.

Tavares says that electric vehicles like the Nissan Leaf will have lower maintenance costs and the electric power to recharge them will be about a quarter the cost of gasoline, at today's prices.  He said that current government incentives will help launch electric vehicles, but will not be needed after companies start building large numbers of EV's and can get economies of scale.

"We have already made the decisions that allow us to be a mass producer," he said.  "Once we achieve that size, then the productivity—which is what we know how to do best—will happen."
 
The electric vehicle market getting a boost last week when General Electric announced that it plans to purchase "tens of thousands" of electric vehicles for its fleets.  GE did not say which vehicle it would buy, but Nissan is very interested.

"Y'know the good thing about that announcement, first, is that it sets demand at the very ambitious level for one single company, we are delighted," said Tavares.