Nissan bets on electric cars, not biofuels
CHIBA, Japan--Nissan is going to come out with more hybrid cars and completely electric vehicles in a few years.
But it's less excited about ethanol and biodiesel.
Nissan's Minoru Shinohara amid the Ceatec crowds.
(Credit: Michael Kanellos/CNET News.com)Technically speaking, designing an ethanol or biodiesel car is fairly straightforward, said Minoru Shinohara, senior vice president and general manager of the Technology Development Division at Nissan, during a meeting at the Ceatec show here this week.
The problem is the cost of the fuel. Both biodiesel and ethanol cost more than regular gas, when changes in mileage and other factors are calculated.
"The most important thing is availability of fuel," Shinohara said. In the future, he speculated, biofuel cars could account for 10 percent to 20 percent of all cars sold. It's a large percentage, but nowhere close to a majority.
There are also the political and societal questions, he added. Do you have to use cropland that might be better used in growing food? Do you have to cut down tropical forests?
It's the opposite with cars that run on electricity. The societal questions are easy. The tough part is coming up with a battery that is small enough and cheap enough to put into a car.
Electric cars probably won't be replacements for current petroleum cars. Batteries can't provide a range that gas-powered cars can. Instead, manufacturers will tout them as second cars or town cars designed for ordinary, short commutes. Getting consumers to understand, and act on, the town car concept is going to take a lot of marketing and work, Shinohara said.
"They (electric cars) are not a replacement for traditional vehicles," he said.
Nissan's electric plans are already under way. The company currently sells some hybrid vehicles that rely on components and technology from Toyota. It will come out with cars based on its own hybrid system in 2010. (Nissan got a good share of the buzz at last month's Frankfurt auto show with its electric-powered concept car, the Mixim.)
The first mass-produced electric car from Nissan will then likely follow in 2011 or 2012, Shinohara added. It will likely be a city car. He's a lot less excited about the concept about plug-in hybrids--again, it's the price/benefit equation.
The basis of these future hybrids and electrics will likely come from batteries from a joint venture formed earlier this year between Nissan and NEC.
The problem isn't weather or not there is food to feed the hungry, its a matter of who pays for the food that the hungry can't afford. Unfortunately seed isn't free, in fact Corn and soybean seed is VERY expensive. The fuel the farmer used to till the soil, plant the seed, and harvest the crops isn't free either. Plus, the farmer needs something for the time he spent doing all that.
It's not do we have enough, but whose going to pay for it?
he said.
I wouldn't be so quick to assume that. At the rate battery
technology is improving, EVs and PHEVs could replace a large
portion of "traditional vehicles" over the coming, say, 20 years.
many residents who have garages or carports where they can recharge their cars. Ans even city dwellers need to go places outside the city. The only reason Nissan is not building a plug-in is because they simply don't have the technology and are settling for a reduced sized version of the GM EV-1 flop, recently voted one of the worst 50 cars of all time by Time magazine. GM will have an electric with a range extender in production by late 2010. It will destroy the sales of this Nissan vehicle here and in Europe.
Take a test drive today...
http://www.katu.com/news/consumer/Other/9539367.html?video=YHI&t=a
The only problem is the need for massive electric power generation growth in the future; the only viable solution is nuclear power, including fuel reprocessing and breeder reactors.
Ethanol is useful as a food supplement (Jack Daniels?}, but as long as there are hungry people in the world, burning it is perhaps even immoral. In fact all the other fuel proposals are either ridiculously wasteful of energy, or excessively polluting, or ludicrously expensive or they have some combination of these problems.
There is enough coal and tar sands to supply us with the liquid fuel required for cars, but homes should all convert to electric power for heating. With the above scenario, we would solve the energy problem, the US dependence on imported oil, and the global warming problem. The only immoral part might be that the Arabs will have to invent a way to make food from their oil,
Chinese electric cars will be in the US market late 2008 or early 2009 I believe.
Two of US companies right now sell Chinese Electric cars, one of them is Zap http://www.zapworld.com
Several companies and researchers have announced major breakthroughs in battery capacity, which is all that has been keeping the electric car from widespread adoption. Within a few years, batteries (or ultra-capacitors) that can power a car for hundreds of miles on a single charge may be available.
Electric cars have many potential advantages over internal combustion cars: simpler design, much more reliable, no more tuneups or oil changes required, much lower energy (fuel) costs, zero emissions, etc.
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by PeekOyle
May 20, 2008 5:48 AM PDT
- Just to counter a few points made above.
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See all 35 Comments >>1. The GM EV1 was a test car that was available for lease, there was only about 1500 of them made. You couldnt buy one! Thats how GM was able to crush them. Therefore saying that the EV1, which was obviously a test platform, was a flop etc seems rather pointless.
2. I'm really getting sick and tired of ppl bringing up the 'The long tail-pipe theory' whenever EV's are mentioned. It's been proven numerous times that the 'Wheel to Wheel' efficiency of EV's powered by coal-fired electricity is always superior to the 'Wheel to Wheel' efficiency of ICE vehicles.