The electric motor movement continues to rev its lithium powered engine in the face of high gas prices. Nissan announced its ambitious partnership with the state of Tennessee to better understand how to make the US an electric nation.
Last week, Nissan Motors announced a partnership with the state of Tennessee to study what transportation framework will be required to integrate electric cars into the global transportation economy. Nissan hopes that the study will provide insight that will allow them to market their electric cars globally by the year 2012.
What Nissan lacks in hybrid technology, they are attempting making up for with electric foresight (Nissan has some smaller, more efficient cars, but none have hybrid technology). The company is banking on a high demand for zero emission vehicles and has taken the necessary steps to facilitate the use of electric vehicles. Nissan recently announced they will sell electric cars in the US in 2010 with plans for another electric vehicle to be globally released in 2012. There will be no backup combustion engines in any of Nissan’s electric vehicles.
Nissan’s partnership with Tennessee will hopefully show us what kinds of changes are needed to accommodate the electric vehicle. We tend to forget about this whole infrastructural shift that would be required if we move away from combustion engines, and it’s hard not to. Electric cars offer a new freedom from oil, but their fate will be determined by the freedom of the consumer. In order to attract electric drivers, things like charging stations and electric vehicle lanes need to become state standards. And then who should control this shift in infrastructure? Is it a federal mandate? States rights? Perhaps neighboring Kentucky wants nothing to do with electric cars. Maybe they do, but they don’t want to use the same voltage charging stations as Tennessee. Maybe the federal government would think whole idea is stupid and we should just use oil…
The list of issues can go on and on, but the point is that Nissan has taken the initiative to help the US become a better place for electric vehicles. If things work out, Nissan will definetly make up for their lack of hybrid technology.
More posts on Electric Cars:
- Nissan to Sell Electric Cars in US by 2010
- An Electric Car You Can Buy Today: The $20K TRIAC EV
- BMW Mini Electric Cars Available in U.S. From Summer 2009
- An Electric Car With Muscle: The 175 MPGe X1 Prototype
Photo Credit: Adam_D, under Flickr’s Creative Commons License
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Carlos Ghosn was a dope a year or so ago when he claimed electric propulsion in any form made no sense.
Now that he has been granted monoploy provider to
Project Better Place, why he’s been transformed and now claims that only “pure electric cars” (i.e. battery-only) are worth anything, proving that Carlos is still just as misinformed as ever. Actually, his company doesn’t have the expertise nor the batteries to build a Chevy Volt type electric – you know, one that can go anyhwere, doesn’t require the owner to maintain two cars, one electric and one gas powered.
What hilarious is that the Volt can avoid 95% of gasoline even without any away from home rechareges, while the pure electric like Ghosn’s (with a 100 mile range – and a 50 mile driving radius) can’t come even
close to doing that.
Carlos Ghosn was a dope a year or so ago when he claimed electric propulsion in any form made no sense.
Now that he has been granted monoploy provider to
Project Better Place, why he’s been transformed and now claims that only “pure electric cars” (i.e. battery-only) are worth anything, proving that Carlos is still just as misinformed as ever. Actually, his company doesn’t have the expertise nor the batteries to build a Chevy Volt type electric – you know, one that can go anyhwere, doesn’t require the owner to maintain two cars, one electric and one gas powered.
What hilarious is that the Volt can avoid 95% of gasoline even without any away from home rechareges, while the pure electric like Ghosn’s (with a 100 mile range – and a 50 mile driving radius) can’t come even
close to doing that.
Congrats on a great article again. You have the young pulse of the nation.
Congrats on a great article again. You have the young pulse of the nation.
I was planning to get a new car this year, but gas prices got too ridiculous. My next car will be electric for sure. I’ll probably have to wait until 2013-2015 though for the high demand and price for electrics to go down.
Check out this hitched-on $4000 range extender from ACpropulsion:
This range extender is supposedly very efficient – 30-40mpg.
I don’t know if they still sell them, but I’m sure an industry creating range extenders for electrics will inevitably grow fast, once electrics start being mass produced.
Nissan will initially save a lot of money from not having to deal with any governmental regulation on mpg efficiency/pollution tests…so I understand why they wouldn’t want to include range extenders on their new green autos. + they will get much more lucrative cap and trade pollution credits they can sell to would be polluters for their autos that are zero emission.
I was planning to get a new car this year, but gas prices got too ridiculous. My next car will be electric for sure. I’ll probably have to wait until 2013-2015 though for the high demand and price for electrics to go down.
Check out this hitched-on $4000 range extender from ACpropulsion:
This range extender is supposedly very efficient – 30-40mpg.
I don’t know if they still sell them, but I’m sure an industry creating range extenders for electrics will inevitably grow fast, once electrics start being mass produced.
Nissan will initially save a lot of money from not having to deal with any governmental regulation on mpg efficiency/pollution tests…so I understand why they wouldn’t want to include range extenders on their new green autos. + they will get much more lucrative cap and trade pollution credits they can sell to would be polluters for their autos that are zero emission.