No real shock as Nissan turns new Leaf in business of car manufacturing

FOUR BILLION euro. That's the number spinning around my head as I get into a Nissan Tiida. It's the amount of money that Nissan is sinking into its electric vehicle plans and this innocuous-looking car represents the spearhead of that investment. Underneath the familiar – if somewhat odd painted black and white – body is the makings of Nissan's Leaf, writes KYLE FORTUNE

The electric Leaf is due late in 2010 in the US and Japan and Europe is due to receive it in 2011. Nissan has grand plans to lead with it, bringing a genuine electric vehicle to market before its competition. If it drives anything like this prototype then it should do well, the only questions for it – and the raft of rivals that’ll soon follow – being the range (which stands at around 160 kilometres from a full charge) and whether there’s a market for it, the infrastructure and cost.

Nissan’s chief executive, Carlos Ghosn, has answers and is confident that electric cars will make up 10 per cent of the market by 2010. His arguments are simple: oil prices will continue to rise from the current $78 a barrel (about €52), and consumers want electric cars. And the range? Nissan, like all manufacturers points to statistics highlighting that the majority of regular drives are less than 50 kilometres.

And charging? A pole outside a house could cost as little as €700, quick charge stations at shopping centres or petrol stations around €20,000 and the conversion costs of a 100V to 200V electricity upgrade in the US is currently about $500 (€334).

That does go some way to sorting out the charging and range issues, with the latest battery accepting a quick charge within 30 minutes. That gives around 80 per cent capacity and a 128km range. Fifteen minutes gives a 50 per cent charge and 80km. With over 30 agreements between Nissan and local and national governments to incentivise the building of charging points, the infrastructure is coming. Government incentives are also the way by which Ghosn envisages getting consumers into cars, as the technology will be initially expensive to produce. Ghosn admits that there’s no reason why electric cars should cost more than conventional ones and with demand production costs will drop.

As it stands with the Leaf all Nissan is saying is that it is anticipated to cost much the same as a car in the C-segment it competes in once all the factors are taken into consideration. These include government incentives, the lease cost of the battery and the low cost of electricity to charge it. Nissan concedes it’ll be a case of educating its buyers as to the purchase and running costs, leasing of batteries seemingly the preferred route for the foreseeable future. Whatever Nissan is saying, the Leaf will inevitably be expensive.

Various international incentive examples include Israel offering a drop in its car purchase tax from 80 to just 10 per cent and the British Government suggesting a £5,000 payment towards the purchase of a zero emissions car. The Irish Government has set the goal to have 250,000 electric cars on the road by 2020 – fittingly the same 10 per cent of the market suggested by Ghosn – by offering tax incentives where businesses can write off 100 per cent of the purchase against tax under the Accelerated Capital Allowance Scheme.

Electric cars remain a complicated and multi-layered issue, though the Leaf prototype I drove underlines that those issues will need to be addressed sooner rather than later.