Nissan’s Top Priority: The Promotion of EV

Editor’s Note: From October 22nd to 23rd,the 2009 International Electric Vehicle Innovation and Development Forum was held in Chongqing where many industry personnel rubbed shoulders and shared the latest achievements, exchanging ideas with each other. Tsunehiko Nakagawa, the general manager of Nissan (China) investment Co. Ltd. gave an address.

Tsunehiko Nakagawa, the general manager of Nissan (China) investment Co. Ltd.

Tsunehiko Nakagawa: Good afternoon, everyone. I’m Tsunehiko Nakagawa form Nissan Investment Corporation. Today I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce the challenges that Nissan encounters in the development of electric vehicles. Before that I’d like to remind everyone here that today’s conference has already been transforming something around us, which can be seen from today’s agenda. First I will introduce Nissan as well as our expansion plans. According to the demand of the government and emission-control committee, we have to reduce emission of carbon dioxide to less than 400ppm with the measure of density. So next I will figure out a long-term goal of cutting carbon emissions, hoping that Nissan should reduce the emission amount to 50% by the year of 2050.

There exist great potentials of reducing the emission of carbon dioxide so Nissan will set a new goal to reduce the emission amount by no less than 70% in 2050. Here are some data provided by different resources. For example, we can reduce the number of locomotives which depend on gasoline. But the reduction of carbon dioxide emission doesn’t only lie in vehicles, and it can be reduced by 30%, 50% or even 70%, 90%. For that reason, we must promote our electric cars. The issue of global warming could be controlled if it works well.

We Nissan decided to focus on the promotion of electric vehicles, because we believe in its usefulness. Nissan put forward the introduction of electric vehicle into market as early as the year of 1990, and has launched different types of concept cars by the year of 2005. In 2008 we introduced a new type of concept car called MUVU which had been launched in Paris, France. The new type will enter China’s market in 2011. This is the data about specification of Leaf. Its operation model is LMA with mileage of 150 kilometers per hour, and it can contain five people. Leaf uses a kind of father-layer lithium-ion battery, which offers a very fast driving speed.

Compared with the internal combustion engine, it has many advantages to achieve a variety of values. For example, it has no carbon dioxide emission. Besides that, traffic information is available with technological support. With the support of technologies, the electric vehicle is easy to use. This is an electric vehicle supported by IT technology. We can say this type of EV is an environmentally-friendly solution to control carbon dioxide emission.

Compare with the traditional driving power, the power of electric vehicle is doubled, but its size is half of the original one. From our point of view, an integrated method should be adopted to make the electric cars more balanced. Materials, battery, especially the management of energy, and all the other aspects should be taken into full consideration.

There are three important factors, including the issue of charge, as well as these basic facilities.

Secondly, let us have a look at the model of high energy. Nissan model has reached a very quiet effect of sound and both electric cars and hybrid vehicles have reached the level. Now I’d like to share our expansion plan with you. To promote electric vehicles, we should cooperate with many other departments, such as energy, power grid. In this page we can see something associated with electric vehicles. There are four steps: The first step is energy producing; the second step is charging; the third is various ways of charging; and the last one is the transformation of vehicle models. The promotion of electric vehicles will be out of question if the four steps are completed.

Let us come back to the first step, the energy production sector. The reduction of carbon dioxide emission can be gained by the application of other energies such as nuclear, solar, wind, and hydro energy. What I mention here is the effect of electric vehicles in terms of the reduction of carbon dioxide emission. From the different figures we can see various situations of the application of clean energy in different countries. Different countries use different energy sources to generate electricity. Actually, those clean energies are very cheap. Moreover, it can reduce pollution.

Next is the charge network. Some concepts of charging can be seen from the table. It shows a variety of ways of charging. The left one shows that electric vehicles can be charged in an ordinary way, no matter whether you are at home or in the office, in the daytime or at night. You can charge it anywhere and for any purpose. In addition, we have fast-type charge in accordance with the time when the car was parked. Then, we can also set up a number of charging network, which brings much convenience and accelerates the charging speed. Thus we can pay more attention to the needs of the customers of electric vehicles.

Nissan has already established this kind of charge networks. This map is our plan. We can see some urban outlets in Japan, but how to charge in the trunk? At the same time, Nissan is studying the charging system and how to charge in a more convenient way beside the expansion of the network. For instance, we can charge without contact, or charge while driving. We believe the future of this approach is feasible.

This page is about some introduction on the battery industry. NEC and Nissan jointly established a battery company named AESC in 2007. It was set up to reduce the cost of the battery. Our company decided to expand the application of the battery, not only for the electric vehicles, but also in some other areas, so that the whole industry can be expanded and renewable energy will be better used. It is also helpful to adjust demand in electricity demanding peak. In one word, the battery application is prevalent. To make it happen, only one company is not enough.

It is necessary for us to create a global cooperative network to proliferate our effort. Governments, manufacturers, as well as suppliers, all can be united, marching together for the same goal. We will continue to strengthen research in the aspect, and we’re hoping more contribution to the promotion of electric vehicles.

Last but not least, Nissan has some suggestions:

First of all, EV industry cannot be expanded without intimate cooperation with the central government and local governments of China. Encouraging and stimulating market demand calls for more investment into market infrastructure. In this point, it is the government that set down policy to maintain this kind of charging infrastructure. Secondly, we must speed up the promotion work if the expansion of electric vehicles is our target. That means electric vehicle industry must be developed as a key project. In addition, we set some other goals to make government’s functions diversified. The government can not only act as an information provider, but also become a policy and regulation maker. For example, the government can put forward a certain goal in 2015 and devise another one in the next five years. So where is the way to realize these goals? It needs all kinds of efforts. At first the government must work out policies to offer an opportunity for automakers.

Thank you for listening! (Translator: Qinghua/Sailor)

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