Nissan Electric Vehicle Prototype

Electric car NISSAN's answer to what they believe will be the future of automotive transportation. That's right NISSAN has been working on battery technology for the last seventeen years. And they are now finally ready to make use of that technology, in a fully electric plug in vehicle. Although the vehicle is slightly to be released until late next year. Nissan invited us out to give us a preview of their progress so far. Now if the vehicle you see here look some what familiar, you are right. It's the Japanese pack Nissan Cube. However this body is merely a shell for the prototype. According to Nissan the final design of the vehicle will be much more dramatic. Underneath the cube body however the electric proportion internals are almost production ready. We caught up with Chief Product Planner Mark Perry to have him answer some of our question. Nissan's made a decision to mass market up pure battery powered electric vehicles. So zero emission all the time. A little bit about the car, about compact car size, room for five adults, one hundred miles of pure zero emission range. All the crash test, air bags, safety equipments that you would expect from any car from Nissan, plus all those amenities cruise control, Stereo system, GPS navigation. So thing is that it's a real car that you could use in your every day driving patterns but sure zero emission all the time. We are going to recommend that you use a 220 volt circuit, so if you have electric dryer in your home, it's that same socket, so 220 volts and 40 amps. Now it can charge with 110 just in your normal wall plugs, but it takes a little bit longer. That 220 volt program we are talking about, you could charge at home in about four hours. The vehicle we have here today is a prototype in that the mechanicals are correct. So the right battery packs, the right motor, the right inverter. But the actual vehicle design, the exterior is just a box; it's not the final, it's not the final execution. And one of the thing Nissan has been working very hard at you know last eight months or so, is forming partnerships with interested utility companies, state, local governments and regional planning groups. So the markets that we are launching in have really three characteristics first interested consumers, so do we have people that are really wanting sustainable transportation, they want green power, they want vehicles with zero emission, so consumer is number one. Number two public, so that's the whether it's a Governor's office, The Mayor's, The Regional planning authorities so we can work together to figure out the process. Because as part of the process is permitting an inspection of the electrical system in your house so we need to make that smooth and easy, plus there is some awareness going on. And then third the private sector, the utility company needs to be supportive of course. But then also the major employers in the area who have employee campuses because, what's the car do every day? Goes from home to work, work back to home, may be a few tours in and around. But really if you want to get home charging and work place charging all are worked out. So it's easy and simple for consumers to actually use this car every day. A couple of things first of whether you agree or not I mean CO2 reduction is a reality we have to reduce CO2. So here is the vehicle that's a zero emission. But how do we do that? We do that with electric power, so now you have a situation of energy cost, electricity versus gas. The math worked out the gasoline would had to settle at dollar ten a gallon for this not to make economic sense for you as a consumer. So I don't think gas is going to go down to a dollar ten any time soon. So we are ok and closer it gets to 3 or 4 dollars of course the better offer it gets. So your electricity cost will always be less to run the car. Then gasoline will be even as low as a dollar ten. So from a consumer you are zero emission all the time. We are not asking to pay a price at premium in your running cost your actually a energy use whether its gas or electricity will always going on the electric size. So cheaper for you to be zero emission. A couple of thing's about electric car, of course torque so the immediate kind of off the line acceleration is there. Because in electric motor the torque is immediate, no noise, as these cars are quite. Basically here a little bit of wind noise and tire noise and that's about you only hear. You don't hear engine sound. Now some people may missed that others may like the fact that it's quite and very relaxing kind of driving experience. The other side benefit of course is you have a vehicle that is zero emission. You can expect it to arrive in 2010 we are actually going to release the design a little bit later this year.