Nissan EV could come to US in 2010, two years earlier than expected
by Jonathon Ramsey on Apr 1st 2009 at 2:21PM 
Nissan appears to feel the electricity in the air, and has said it is open to selling its EV to retail consumers two years ahead of schedule. That doesn't mean it will go on sale everywhere -- said a Nissan rep, "if a market is ready for it, we'll go ahead earlier." When it does arrive, it will be a "uniquely designed stand-alone model" that will focus attention on the brand and its EV credentials.
This announcement follows the recent news of Renault-Nissan's alliance with San Diego Gas & Electric to build an electric vehicle charging network. At the time it was thought that Nissan's sales would be limited to fleet and commercial users until 2012, but it follows that if the infrastructure is in place and consumers are ready to buy in 2010, why should drivers charge their Volts, Karmas, and Teslas on Nissan's hard work? Call us crazy, but we have a feeling that California can get ready to start its electric engines very soon...
[Source: Automotive News - Sub. Req.]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Andre 2:25PM (4/01/2009)
Yeah, I have a feeling California will become the Electric car capital in the world..
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Rick 2:36PM (4/01/2009)
That's awesome!! Unless it's this ugly cube car :(
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Luis 2:38PM (4/01/2009)
And it will be just in time for the economy to recover and gas to rocket past $4/gallon again.
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Shiftright 2:43PM (4/01/2009)
Bring the old Cube back and ditch the current goofy one.
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battery bob 3:37PM (4/01/2009)
Well plug me in and call me socket head. I have always wanted a car I can plug in at night and then drive the next day just like I plug in my electric shaver to re-charge and use the next day. Will the Smart Meter that our very own Prince of Darkness wants to install in all of our houses allow for the increased energy needed to re-charge one of these cars?
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Farris 5:33PM (4/01/2009)
test
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P.V. 8:03PM (4/01/2009)
Would the EV be built on the current or late Cube?
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Dan 8:04PM (4/01/2009)
I hope it's the Cube. I'd ditch my xB if i can fit a bike in the back.
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keep the change 2:35AM (4/02/2009)
Just where is all this electricity supposed to come from? The amount of electricity required by your home is insignificant compared to that required to push a 3000 lb automobile a 100 miles. The grid, especially in California, is taxed to the limit, especially in the summer with everyone's air conditioning running. Up here in Ontario, in the summer, the stores turn off many of their lights because of the threat of rolling brown outs. With not a single electric car on the grid. You don't need a calculator to figure out what happens next.
Once more than several thousand of these thing start draining the grid, the environmentalists will rally against them because they will say they are using too much energy, they will require nuclear power plants be built, they will require new transmission lines disturbing the spotted owl, the batteries will be deemed an environmental threat, and the list of threats from the electric car will go on and on.
Their solution: Out: electric cars. In: Cars powered by sails.
It's the same old dance. So why change the music.
Of course, the hydro companies will have to jack up your electricity rates to pay for the new infrastructure, and since you are using it as fuel, they will charge you basically what it would cost you to fill up your tank with gas. Maybe more. Depending on how they feel about it. You can boycott an oil company, you can't boycott the power company.
They will cost three times as much to make, and three times as much to charge with energy, considering the electrical production and infrastructure required to power hundreds of millions of electric cars, and in the end, the environmentalists will not be pacified as electricity will be the new boogeyman. In fact, it already is. On March 28, millions of people turned off their lights in symbolic protest of what they know not. For a full hour. Once the nation's fleet becomes electric, they will ask that you pull over to the side of the road for an hour and sit.
That's not progress.
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jake 1:51PM (4/02/2009)
Actually I can come to the exact opposite conclusion of what you are saying, it just depends on how you look at it. First of all, the reason why power companies aren't developing as much capacity is because the usage is too uneven. All the power generated at night is wasted/unused, so they would rather have brownouts than spend more money on capacity that is wasted/unused for most of the year. With EVs & plug-ins they have a drain on the night load which gives them better profit margins and justification to build more capacity. They already offer incentives for time-of-use electricity to encourage people to charge EVs at night.
With smart grid technology, in addition, they have a load they can control. This means at peak usage they can turn off BEV charging based on priority (when the person needs the car to be chargeed). This helps balance the load of the grid which is of huge value to power companies. If V2G gets implemented, they even have another source of electricity for the peak days, by getting energy from people's batteries. If people don't want to deal with the power company, the battery in the car is enough to power a house for a couple of hours, it's quite useful for a backup generator: charge up at night & use the power for the day.
So it's not that simple, it can go either way.