EV Fluence, Kangoo variants announced

First came Nissan's Leaf, now partner Renault has opened the order books as it unveils its all-electric Fluence sedan and Kangoo minivan.

Renault-Nissan Alliance CEO Carlos Ghosn and his colleagues are betting that EVs will account for 10 per cent of the world auto market by 2020, and they're going all-out to get the jump on what they believe will be hot competition in years to come.

To that end, the French-Japanese conglomerate is sinking €4 billion (AUD$5.8 billion) into its global EV program. The strategy is not just to get to market first, but to make the product affordable ASAP, as evidenced by Nissan's hopes to bring its Leaf EV to market in Australia at a price in the $30Ks rather than the $60Ks Mitsubishi i-MiEV buyers appear to face when that car hits the market.

The aggressive pricing strategy is designed in part to attract at least 20,000 reservations before the Leaf hits global markets in Q4 this year. So far that's looking easy, with over 56,000 expressions of interest on its books already. With the recent unveiling, the company has announced it's also opening the order books for the Renault ZEs.

The Renault products are some way off our market at this point. In keeping with its close-knit alliance with EV infrastructure outfit Better Place, Fluence ZE (pictured) will go to market in Israel (that company's original home), followed by Denmark (where Better Place rolled out a showcase charging network for last year's Copenhagen climate change convention) and then the rest of Europe in 2011. Renault has told media it will position the car at the prestige end of the green car market. The Kangoo ZE, aimed initially at European city business buyers, will go into production next year.

Each model has been given some visual treatment to differentiate them at a glance from their conventionally powered donor vehicles, but up against futuristic little tardises like the Leaf and the i-MiEV, they're surprisingly ordinary. The main difference between the Fluence ZE and its siblings is the 12 extra centimetres it needed to accommodate the lithium-ion battery behind the rear seat.

Where they're not so ordinary is in the lengths to which Renault has gone to make them usable for the daily commute. For that purpose, the company has placed its bets with Better Place, making the Fluence ZE the first car to go to market with Better Place's QuickDrop battery-swap system. When operators don't have the time or the access to charge the car's battery from a domestic power supply (8-9 hours) or a rapid-charge public plug (30 minutes), they can stop in at a Better Place outlet and swap it for a fully-charged one in less than three minutes.

So close is the relationship with Better Place, that while the Fluence ZE will be sold in Denmark through Renault dealers, Better Place has secured exclusive import rights to the car for the Israeli market. Renault has told media it's looking at selling 100,000 of the cars into those two markets alone.

The Fluence ZE is powered by a 70kW, 226Nm electric motor hitched up to a 22kWh lithium-ion battery. Between them, they make up more than 400 kg of the car's weight -- 160 kg for the motor, 250 kg for the battery pack, meaning the car needed substantial suspension revisions to accommodate the lightened front end and the extra weight in the rear.

In designing the Kangoo ZE, the company opted for maximum cargo capacity over QuickDrop battery accessibility. Its battery pack sits beneath the floor, meaning no penalty in carrying capacity against the conventionally powered equivalent. It uses a 22 kWh battery powering a 44kW electric motor capable of reaching a peak torque figure of 226Nm.

Both vehicles are good for up to 160 km NEDC combined cycle, and both are governed at a maximum 135 km/h to help maximise range.

The Alliance's EV business model will turn battery production into part of its core business. While initially the conglomerate will import batteries from Japanese Nissan-NEC joint venture AESC, that will only be for as long as it takes to set up its own lithium-ion battery factories in the US, Asia and Europe.

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