Nissan to introduce (three) new Electric Vehicle models next month

Is the competition going to eat GM's lunch in the electric vehicle segment?
Nissan says they have three fully electric vehicles ready to go for the US market, each with a 100 mile range which is more than twice that of the Chevy Volt which has a 40 mile range. They say starting prices will be competitive with their gasoline economy models. I don't know how the Chevy Volt with its base price of $40,000 can compete with that if it's true.
Once again, GM seems to be a day late and a dollar short.


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Report: Nissan to introduce electric SUV next month
07/24/2009, 9:18 AM
By Andrew Ganz

Nissan says that it is planning to introduce three electric cars on August 2, at least one of which is intended to be assembled at the automaker’s Spring Hill, Tennessee, assembly plant – and that one is expected to be the rumored compact SUV sized a bit smaller than the Rogue.

Measuring in at 164 inches in overall length, according to Japan’s Best Car Magazine, the SUV will be capable of a range exceeding 100 miles, if the publication is to be believed.

Between the SUV and the two other variants – likely small cars, one of which will compete with the Mitsubishi i-MiEV and one of which will be sized about like the Nissan Versa, the Japanese automaker apparently intends to sell more than 5 million units on the mass market by 2012.



www.leftlanenews.com/report-nissan-to-introduce-electric-suv-next-month.html
www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D99MGEVG0.htm

Its due to be idled in November.

Nissan has a plant in Smyrna, Tennessee not Spring Hill.

We just need to burn more coal to run them, but if we stop using gas that will reduce those greenhouse gases..... uh, wait......

Not that we should be expanding our coal consumption but replacing every single car with an EV powered by coal would reduce our CO2 emissions by 30% (think 5x Kyoto).

How can this be.... coal is dirty?

Well compared to other forms of electricity coal is downright nasty.

However most modern coal power plants are about 40%-65% efficient. Now they don't do this to be nice, or green. They make powerplants efficient because coal cost money and the more efficient the plant the less coal it uses per kwh.

Internal combustion engines are about 8%-11% efficient. The theoretical limits (never even achieved in a lab) for Internal Combustion Engines is 27%. Maybe someday with ultra efficient diesel engines combined with hybrid technology, direction fuel injection, and complex expensive adaptive emission control system we can get a car engine into the 18%-20% efficiency range.... and it will still be dirtier than coal.

primarily from natural-gas fired power plants and/or hydro-electric power, both clean sources of energy. California, for example gets only about 15% of its electricity from coal-burning sources. Electric power can also be produced by renewable sources like wind and solar. The rapid growth of wind and solar will displace the coal-burning sources even further.