Renault-Nissan working on $9000 electric car

Renault-Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn has admitted that once the 34 per cent acquisition of Mitsubishi is complete all three car-makers will focus their collective attention on creating an ultra-low-priced pure-electric vehicle for China.

Making the announcement at a conference in Paris, Ghosn was reported by newswire Automotive News as saying: "What we want to do is bring a $[US]7000-$8000 electric car without incentives. If we are able to make this kind of breakthrough, it's going to change the game."

This means that, at current exchange rates, such a car could sell in Australia for between $9000 and $10,000 without any federal grants.

It's thought the motivation to create an ultra-low-cost pure-electric vehicle comes from China itself, which has declared that it wants five million pure-electric or plug-in vehicles on its roads by 2020.

Currently, according to Automotive News, Nissan is struggling to sell its rebadged LEAF that's known locally as the Venucia e30. Priced at $48,000, last year the firm sold just 1273 cars.

It's not known how Renault-Nissan will be able to develop a pure-electric car this cheap, but subsidies direct to the car-maker in the form of tax relief could prove the answer.

Skimping on safety kit and basing it on the current LEAF platform would also bring savings.