The Cutting Edge

Nissan and Project Better Place promise that their 2010 electric cars will be pure electric—not plug-in hybrids like those planned by many green competitors. I want a pure electric car,” said Carlos Goshn, chief executive officer of Nissan. “I don’t want a hybrid”.

As a result, Nissan's cars will be 100% emission free, Goshn declared at a ceremony to dedicate Nissan’s new North American headquarters in Franklin, an affluent suburb in the hills south of Nashville.

How long must an electric car’s battery last before needing a recharge? To be practical, in the United States, at least 100 miles, said Goshn. Other countries might need only a 50 mile range because of different driving patterns, and some populations will have higher tolerance levels than others for the frequency of recharging, but Nissan insists that all their electric cars run on electricity only.

We will not market cars that are sometimes emission free and sometimes not, said Goshn. An electric car that lets oil take over when the battery loses its charge is “unsustainable”.

Similar attempts to manufacture and market emission-free pure electric cars are underway in Denmark, Israel and Portugal. But Nissan sees the United States as its giant opportunity.
The undertaking will be completely green, that is environmentally sustainable and economically profitable. We are not developing emission free technology for bragging rights, said Dominique Thormann, Nissan’s senior vice president for finance in North America. “Everything that we develop, we develop for profits. Electric vehicles must be immediately affordable and profitable or we won't sell them. “We make money on all our cars. We do not have loss leaders,” he said.

Nissan will be working with the state of Tennessee and its largest electric utility, the Tennessee Valley Authority, to develop infrastructure for charging stations.

Preparing to take Nissan head on is General Motors, which is developing the Chevrolet Volt, a hybrid that can go 40 miles on battery power before switching to gas. GM is working with the nonprofit Electric Power Research Institute, which represents more than 30 large electric utilities in North America, to develop its vehicles.

Overseas automakers have taken their business to the South, particularly Tennessee. While Detroit automakers have laid off thousands of workers and are closing plants across the Midwest and other parts of the country, Tennessee is experiencing an autoworkers renaissance.

Nissan’s new 450,000-square-foot headquarters in Franklin comes two years after it left Southern California for temporary quarters in downtown Nashville. Last week, Volkswagen of Germany selected Chattanooga as the site of its first United States car plant. Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Toyota and Hyundai also have plants in the South.

“The arrival of the auto industry in Tennessee has transformed our lives,” Senator Lamar Alexander, a Republican, told Nissan employees during the dedication ceremony. The dedication was followed by country music, tours of the energy-efficient building and a pie-baking contest.

“You put the South on a path to become the new center of the American auto industry.” said the Senator.

Not a few observers predict that the South will become one America’s most receptive epicenter for electric cars, right along with San Francisco, Seattle and other cities prominent the electric car movement.

Jesse Cogan is a New York contributor to The Cutting Edge News.