The Muffin Post

Francis Anthony Govia

Nissan's Leaf

This week the media was buzzing with talk about Nissan’s all new electric vehicle, the zero emission 5-passenger compact vehicle called the Leaf. The car will have a top speed of 90 miles per hour, and will go for 100 miles in standard driving conditions on a single charge of the lithium-ion battery that powers the engine, at a cost of $0.90 per recharge. It is said to accelerate like a V6, and will be sold at a price comparable to a sedan with a gas-powered-engine in its class. Since there will be no gas tank, the interior of the Leaf will be roomy. The headlights and taillights will be LED which uses less power than conventional lights, and cabin heat will be generated with a safe and enclosed space-like electric heater. The lithium-ion battery is expected to last for about five years.

Does this sound like a car you would buy? Even if your answer is positive, it is possible that the Leaf will not be available in the country or state that you live. So far, Nissan plans to make the Leaf available only to customers in Japan and the United States around 2010, with Israel, Singapore, China and part of Europe to follow at a yet to be determined date. The first shipments of the car to the U.S. market will come from Japan, and will be sold only in states that will have battery charging infrastructure in place. Foreseeably, these states include California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, North Carolina and Tennessee. To meet future demand, Nissan plans to modify its Smyrna, Tennessee plant, to produce more zero-emission vehicles and lithium-ion batteries.

We believe that Nissan should embark on a more ambitious plan for the sale of these zero emission vehicles, and include more developing countries in the mix of second tier of countries considered for the delivery of them. Many of the world’s developing countries are burdened with the surcharges attached to fuel these days and a car such as the Leaf will go a long way towards easing their balance of payments, and taking them off a lifeline that we invariably have to support. Second, we recommend that Nissan phase in the delivery of shipments of the Leaf to the Caribbean along with the time scheduled for Singapore.

Many of the Caribbean nations are tiny, and the infrastructure for charging the Leaf’s battery could be easily built. In some instances, the home charging kit may be adequate to service the batteries of some customers in these countries. At a cost of $500 per battery home charging kit, Nissan (or its partners) could include the accessory in the finance package that sells the vehicle. Ideally, in large countries, Nissan should support the option for a car owner to have the rapid charge of batteries at a road station, along with the slower home charge kit for homeowners. If private interests are not keen on supporting these plans, the Governments and Nissan should orchestrate a means to support them.

In the U.S. we should let our voices be heard by our representatives. Congress earmarked $25 billion of taxpayer money to the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program (ATVMLP), under Section 136 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. Nissan North American, Inc. (NNA) was conditionally approved recently by the U.S. Department of Energy for a $1.6 billion loan to modify the Smyrna manufacturing plant. The loan is the first of three agreed to by the Department under ATVMLP, and is designed to accelerate the development of vehicles and technologies that increase U.S. energy independence, create cleaner means of transportation, and stimulate the American economy. We should demand better results from the programs the Act was designed to support.

It is without question that the environments of the countries that are in close proximity to us have an effect on the quality of our lives. The nations of the Caribbean, because of their focus on Tourism, are ideally positioned for an eco-friendly vehicle that will keep these environments pristine for Americans who value them for vacationing purposes. We believe that the workers of the Smyrna manufacturing plant (and others) should benefit from the early fostering of a demand for zero emission vehicles in the Caribbean, countries bordering the U.S, and developing nations. Further, Americans should support this initiative for an industry that needs to retool itself, find a better way of doing business, and building cars.

We acknowledge that production of the Leaf at Smyrna is not expected to start until 2012, and a lot of work will have to be done in the immediate future to make sure that the vehicle gets a proper introduction into scheduled markets. The Leaf itself is only one of at least two competing technologies designed to help nations to overcome their dependency on fossil fuels. It will still have to prove itself against benchmarks set by cars like the Toyota Prius, and the Volt, a new entry from Chevrolet, amongst others. However, Nissan has a golden opportunity to state to all that this is a global initiative of importance to the haves of power and influence as well as the have-nots. If Nissan does this well, it could be a model for how business is conducted in the future.