The U.K. and Portugal are offering government assistance for Japan's No. 3 automaker, Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. (NASDAQ:NSANY), to create lithium-ion battery plants in their countries as electric and hybrid vehicles come to market globally. The projected annual capacity for each plant is 60,000 units.
Earlier this year, Nissan cut about 1,200 jobs in the U.K. but may hire as many as 350 people for the plant in northern England, which will be the Renault SA-Nissan alliance's Euro headquarters for battery making. The venture will be named Nissan European Mother Site for Battery Production.
Portugal hires could number around 200 people. Nissan
first announced its Portugal plans a year ago. The key to that alliance was for Nissan to study the infrastructure and related organizations -- such as parking lot and railway companies -- required to create a nationwide network of charging stations for electric vehicles. Reuters
quoted Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates saying that the government plans to boost electric car sales by offering an incentive of up to €6,500 ($9,240) to buyers, making it compulsory for new buildings to have charging points and replacing 20% of cars in local government fleets with electric ones by 2011. The country will serve as sort of a test pilot for the Renault-Nissan electric-car JV, which plans to mass-market electric vehicles to consumers globally by 2012.
CEO Carlos Ghosn recently said
he's not worried about selling the cars and plans to make about 100,000 of them a year at a $500 million plant in Tennessee. Nissan recently said it was
conditionally approved by the U.S. Department of Energy for a $1.6 billion loan to modify its Smyrna, Tenn., manufacturing plant to produce zero-emissions vehicles and li-ion battery packs to power them. Last week, Nissan
announced with NEC Corp. that
its JV, Automotive Energy Supply Corp., began trial production of advanced li-ion batteries at its Zama Operations Center.
The
global market for lithium-ion battery production is heating up in a big way as even oil-rich Abu Dhabi is pouring
money into cleantech. -
Baz HiralalGo to the story
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This is exactly the sort of news story that should be happening here in the U.S. The big three need to get the ball rolling on electric vehicles. Electric vehicles are safe, efficient, and clean. With a little more research, and a lot more commitment from the large automakers, electric cars become a very viable solution to reduce our oil consumptions, green house gas emissions, health care costs, and at the same time adding jobs and bolstering the economy. For more information about electric cars, their history (they’ve been around a long time, ask owners of the GM EV1 or RAV4-EV), and their advantages, check out the book “Two Cents Per Mile” by Nevres Cefo. The website for the book can be found at http://www.twocentspermile.com and you can read excerpts of it on Amazon at http://bit.ly/2centspermile