Zero Emission Mobility chatsessie met Nissan-topman

Andy Palmer beantwoordde vragen over onder meer het belang van overheidssteun voor de introductie van elektrische auto’s, of Nissan van plan is om de elektrische LEAF in China auto’s te produceren, of Nissan de LEAF in oost Europa op de markt wil brengen en of Nissan meer elektrische auto wil gaan bouwen. Voor iedereen die de chatsessie gemist heeft, volgt hier een samenvatting:

Hello everyone, thanks for joining.

We are very pleased to welcome Andy Palmer from Nissan Headquarters in Japan.

Andy Palmer: Hello everyone, it’s a pleasure to be here.

Lembit : Should Government do more to support EV use and what would Nissan like to see?

The important thing is that the government has been an intrinsic part of our go-to market strategy. I think it would be fair to say that without government assistance through the recent crisis, our ambitions wouldn’t have been nearly as great as they are today.
If I could simply refer to the US as an example, here the DOE made us a privilege loan of 1.4 billion dollars in order to facilitate the deployment of the vehicles and the battery facilities.

Is it enough? Would we like to see more ?
Of course the answer is yes. so far, governments’ supports have been specific to some countries but not all. It would be true to say that some countries have spoken about support but have not yet deployed it. At least over the next few years while the technology is maturating. Incentive support is important, if we are to democratize EVs.

Shotaro : Do you have plans to manufacture LEAF or other EVs in China?

We have ambition to manufacture in China. China is Nissan’s largest market, so it’s natural that we would want to deploy vehicles of our highest technology in our biggest market. As per the previous question, initiating EV roll outs is predicated on governments’ support both in terms of fiscal and infrastructure. This support in China is becoming more clear but is not yet fully clear. The best I can say right now is watch this space.

Maxim Kadakov: Main question from Eastern Europe: is there a chance to see Nissan Leaf and other Nissan electric cars in Ukraine, Russia, Poland? When will they appear on sale? Are these electric vehicles ready to exploitation in winter at subzero temperatures?

Like me, batteries don’t much care for the cold. That said, many of the potential customers for LEAF and our other 3 future EVs require solutions that allow them to work in extreme cold and hot climates. In short, we have to deploy battery heating and cooling systems. These systems are almost ready to be deployed. Now, are we ready to go to Ukraine, Russia or Poland? This is really reliant on the charging of infrastructure being deployed in these regions. Today, I don’t have visibility, but the speed of uptake by countries around the world never fails to surpirse me…. So we are ready.

Joost Vianen : How will Nissan’s EV range evolve after Leaf?
Range anxiety is a phenomenon that we can hear very often. Fact is, if someone looks at the B-segment customer in Europe around 35% never, I mean never, drive more than 100kms a day. So in this sense, a typical LEAF charge allowing the range of 160kms is adequate to meet our ambition of 10% market share in 2020. However, we also want to be the undisputed leaders in Zero Emissions. Therefore we are extending our autonomy range and vehicle portfolio range over the coming years. To be specific on portfolio range, we will introduce 4 electric vehicles including LEAF by 2013.

marc bolier: Hello Andy, thnaks for answering our questions. I have one too: does Nissan aim to have a zero-emission car in every passenger car segment or are some segments ruled out beforehand?

Today ’s EV technology does give us some limitations. So in the short term, I would tend to limit EVs to the B, C and small van segments. Above this weight limitation, the batteries tend to become large and in consequence heavy and expensive. This makes it hard to match with our vision of democracizing EVs – which is to say our vision is to sell EVs (including incentives) at a price broadly equal to that of an internal combustion engine vehicle. So, for the rest of the range, today we offer our PURE DRIVE range, which is a variety of low CO₂ technologies, such as clean diesel, HEV, down sizing and idle stop, etc.

Alex Kahl @probefahrer: How far goes the Zero Emission Strategy? Does it end at the emissions of the car or doest it go beyond to Zero Emission in Production and supporting the development of technology for producing Zero Emission Energy that drives the car?

Zero Emissions refers to a lack of tailpipe on the car itself. However our ambition goes beyond that even if we are not the master of the entire supply chain. For example, we try to reduce the CO₂ emitted in the factories that produce our cars eg. windmills in Sunderland. We try to encourage governments to promote the use of renewable power generation. We even champion the re-use of our batteries in second life to help for example to store energy created through windmills. I’m personally member of several forums promoting the debate about smart grids. We cannot control everything as a car maker, all that we can do is lead by example and hope and encourage others to follow.

Peter Lawton: Will you launch range-extended EVs then? Like the Ampera (or is that a hybrid?)

In our definition Ampera is a plug-in hybrid – it has a tailpipe. Therefore it doesn’t meet our definition of zero emissions. That is not to say we think hybrids are bad idea, we think that they have their place and we are also deploying hybrid solutions. We are currently working on a range extended EV solution, but we have no firm plans to launch it at the moment.

David: Will (plug-in) hybrids be part of the Nissan Zero Emission Mobility Strategy?

No.A Hybrid has a tailpipe, so does a plug-in, so does a range extender. Therefore, de facto, it’s not zero emissions. Hybrids, PHEVs, REEV, clean diesels, down sized turbos, idle stop, etc. all form part of our PURE DRIVE technologies. We are agnostic in the use of these technologies and simply look to the best low CO₂ solution for the segment. PURE DRIVE is complementary to our Zero Emission strategy.

Alex Kahl @probefahrer: What about other Zero Emission Technologies like Fuel Cell? Is Nissan / Renault considering alternatives?

Yes. Nissan has been working on fuel cell technologies for some time.
We are part of a consortium in Japan looking at deployment of FCVs. The maturity of this technology at the level of the vehicle is within sight, but the challenge of infrastructure is even greater than that of EVs. We think it has a future. We are preparing for that future, and we consider this to be part of our zero emission leadership strategy.

Alex Kahl @probefahrer: Is the strategy risky to set everything on pure battery-driven EVs? 5 Billion ? is a lot of money.

I believe that we are not ‘betting the farm’ on EVs. We are seeking leadership in EVs envisaging around 10% of our portfolio to be EV in 2020.
That means 90% of our portfolio will use a PURE DRIVE technologies, such as hybrids and clean diesel, etc. 5 billion euros is certainly a lot of money, but leadership in EVs is core to what we want to be and our “raison d’être”. We also believe we have sight of a return on our investments within the mid-term.

Mykola Zakharenkov : What countries are most interesting in ZEV cars sale, and what countries will be interesting in it the next time? A few words about geography of electric vehicles for now and for the future…

Today the leaders can be defined by early deployment of infrastructure and a willingness to financially support the vehicles. In simple terms a non-exhaustive list would include Japan, United States, UK, Ireland, Portugal, Holland and Switzerland.
Within the US some states are even more agressive, California for example.
If we speculate I would anticipate that it’s not so far in the future where we could expect other european countries to join this list, and of course China. I also know that some countries in the Middle East are contemplating early adoption of infrastructure, Israel of course is part of this.

Thank you very much Andy, final words from you to wrap up the discussion please?

Thank you for your patience with my typing speed.
I enjoyed the questions and the opportunity to share our vision for a cleaner world.