Renault-Nissan BV, and in particular the Nissan Motor Co. component of this auto alliance, has moved on several fronts to become a power in electric cars. It has a
lithium-ion battery joint venture, for example. But there are lots of those around.
What's increasingly setting Renault-Nissan apart is a series of collaborations with political authorities in different countries to create the infrastructure of charging stations and other elements necessary for electric cars to become popular and practical.
Thursday's Wall Street Journal reports that Nissan is about to announce
another such deal, its third by our count. This one is with the central Chinese city of Wuhan, and according to the report Nissan is expected to provide electric vehicles for free and help the city develop charging stations and otherwise seed the market.
The Wuhan deal would be modeled on one Nissan has in Japan with its home prefecture of Kanagawa,
announced in May of 2008. In July of 2008, Renault-Nissan announced a deal with the nation of Portugal to study
infrastructure needs for electric cars there.
China, of course, is
pushing hard to take the lead in electric cars. -
Kenneth Klee
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Juergen Lasowski
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This is good news for chinese.
Rose.