Nissan plans to ease cost of electric cars

Nissan has unveiled plans that could bring down the cost of electric cars for drivers.

When the car giant has finished with the batteries it plans to fit to its forthcoming Leaf car, it will sell them to a company that generates electricity from solar power.

The Lithium-ion batteries will still have 70 to 80 per cent of their original recharging capacity when they reach the second-hand market.

Nissan will form a partnership with Japanese trading and investment firm Sumitomo to start selling and leasing the batteries next year.

Toshiyuki Shiga, Nissan’s chief operating officer, says that the scheme will reduce the cost of electric car ownership: “We are taking the most expensive part of the electric vehicle, the battery, and adding value that can be returned to the customer.”

The Nissan ‘Leaf’ is a hatchback design, which the company hopes will become the world’s first mass-produced electric car.

Nissan believes that electric vehicles have enough potential to justify the considerable investment it is making – £200m at its Sunderland factory alone.

Nissan chief executive Carlos Ghosn has said that the price will be competitive: “The monthly cost of the battery, plus the electric charge, will be less than the cost of gasoline”.

Nissan takes a gamble on electric cars

Nissan has said that it plans to make 100,000 electric cars a year by 2012. The firm is gambling on a future car market dominated by electric vehicles rather than the petrol/battery hybrids currently being developed by its rivals, Toyota and Honda.

Drivers of the Nissan Leaf will lease batteries separately from the car itself. Now that the manufacturer plans to sell the batteries after drivers are finished with them, initial renting costs could be significantly reduced.