Nissan gets serious about electric cars
By John Pospisil
Now that it’s clear that global warming and diminishing oil reserves are not just the figment of some crazy scientist’s imagination, car manufacturers are starting to get serious about hybrid gas-electric cars.
Japan’s number two manufacturer, Nissan Motor Co, has just announced that it too will develop a hybrid gas-electric car, which it plans to release by 2010. The company will develop its own lithium-ion batteries to power the new models.
Nissan also announced that it will work with its French partner, Renault SA, to develop bioethanol cars. Nissan will supply the fuel cell and hybrid technologies for the project.
Nissan might be behind way behind the market-leaders in hybrid technology, Toyota and Honda, but it has a good excuse. In 1999 Nissan was on the verge of bankruptcy, and developing eco-friendly cars would not have been high on the list of priorities. The company returned to profitability under the leadership of CEO Carlos Ghosn, who cut costs and increased sales.
It’s good to see yet another car company joining the growing number of manufactures developing hybrid vehicles. Obviously, Nissan sees hybrid cards as a growing opportunity. As petrol prices continue to rise, and economies of scale makes hybrid technology cheaper, there’s no doubt that we’ll see a lot more hybrids on the road very soon.
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Stumble It!
November 26th, 2006
The problem with plain hybrids is that it is simply not a cost effective
technology. The idea that plain hybrids will make any difference with respect to global warming or significantly reduce dependence on foreign oil is
laughably inane. Hybrids are literally a drop in the bucket when it comes to
fuel economy.
September 16th, 2008
Actually, global warming is not a figment of a crazy scientist’s imagination, it is a figment of a collectivist politician’s imagination as the best hope for amassing more power in the state. That aside, I don’t know why people keep pushing $40,000 hybrids and electric cars. I have a $2000 electric scooter which saves me tons of money on gas. I have zero guilt about “the environment” (whatever that is) but I also have zero gasoline bills.