Nissan confirms 2012 date for local sparky

Nissan Australia Managing Director, Dan Thompson, has confirmed the company will offer a family-friendly zero-emission electric vehicle locally by 2012.

Speaking at this week's Australian International Motor Show (AIMS), Thompson added the local angle to visiting Nissan electric vehicle experts Francois Bancon and Rayna Handelman's assertions that the company would be in mass production with the all-new car by 2012.

The local Nissan boss said Holden's move at AIMS to confirm Volt for the same local launch window (more here) had not affected Nissan's timetable.

"It [Holden's announcement] doesn't specifically change our plans," Thompson told the Carsales Network.

"For the last few months we have been building a plan to be first after the first wave. Obviously Nissan is going into the US and Japan, and also has a few other markets already signed up, but we want to be that first market after the first wave," he said

Thompson said, the car's debut had "always been in the timeframe of 2012".

Nissan's Sydney visitors are heavy-hitters in the EV world. Bancon is Nissan's General Manager Global Exploratory and Advanced Product-palnning and Strategy while Handelman heads up the company's Global Electric Vehicle Corporate Planning Office.

The pair were Down Under to brief the Australian media on Nissan's electric vehicle plans. In addition, Handelman was due to talk to government, power companies and other groups on electric vehicle infrastructure and partnership programs.

According to Bancon and Handelman, Nissan's mass produced EV will be launched into the California marketplace in 2010. The vehicle will be all-new (rather than an 'electrified' version of an existing platform) and feature a 'pure' electric drivertrain with no range-extending internal combustion engine (as per Volt).

Styling will not be conservative, says Bancon. However, nor will it be a reproduction of some of Nissan's whackier concepts such as the Paris show's Nuvu or Mixim, first shown at last year's Frankfurt show and currently on display at AIMS (pictured).

"Just keep in mind when we had to decide the design direction we just wanted to make this first [electric] car credible - a real alternative to any other [mass produced] product. That was the brief to the design," explained the adavnced product-planning chief.

According to Handelman, the car "will look like a Nissan".

She says it will provide seating and appropriate luggage space for four to five adults, says.

Initial performance estimates have the car boasting a range of 160km (perhaps more by the 2012 launch) and sufficient performance for highway use. Indeed, Handelman claims the car will have comparable acceleration to "a car with a V6 gasoline engine, able to go 0 to 60mph [100km/h approx] in under nine seconds".

According to the pair, Nissan will announce further details of the new car, including images of the vehicle soon.

Speculation has the vehicle appearing in concept form at either the Los Angeles Motor Show next month or at Detriot in January. However, it's unlikely the company will want to see its important new 370Z sportscar (confirmed for the California show) overshadowed by the EV -- or indeed vica versa. Therefore, we're betting on the Motor City affair.

Either way timing, says local boss Thompson, is not the key issue. Nissan's EV will be anything but an example of a 'green-washing' model, he says.

"For us it's not necessarily about being first to market... It's about bringing to this market a substantial [zero emission] vehicle that offers a driving experience that the customers want."

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