Nissan Sets 2010 for U.S. Electric Car Launch

Nissan Sets 2010 for U.S. Electric Car Launch

Nissan Motor Co., which has come late to the hybrid game, doesn't want to be caught unplugged when electric cars start hitting the market, says company boss Carlos Ghosn.

An electric Nissan will be introduced in the U.S. in 2010, he told reporters Wednesday during an impromptu discussion at the Geneva Motor Show, with a global launch of the vehicle to follow in 2012.

Ghosn, who chairs both Nissan and its French partner, Renault,  said the electric car would be sold worldwide by both brands. He did not elaborate on brand distinctions, model variances or particulars of the electric drive system being prepared, but did say the cars would not be identical.

Renault would target the European market, Ghosn said, while Nissan would target Asia and  the U.S.

Ghosn said that California's 2004 law aimed at reducing automotive carbon-dioxide emissions has spurred Nissan and Renault engineers' joint research  into alternative energy sources such as electric drive. The charismatic Ghosn, who became a folk hero in Japan when he took the reins at an insolvent Nissan in 1998 and turned the company around, was an early and vocal skeptic of Toyota Motor Corp.'s drive to popularize gas-electric hybrids.

He argued that hybrid systems were too expensive.

But the growing success of Toyota's Prius in the U.S., combined with strict California emissions rules that other states were adopting, made him a convert .

In 2007, Nissan launched the Altima Hybrid, which uses technology licensed from Toyota and is sold only in California and the seven states that use California's emissions rules.

Nissan said at the time, though, that it is developing a proprietary hybrid system and would begin introducing it on various Nissan and Infiniti models by 2010.

Now it is adding an electric. Wonder when the plug-in hybrid and fuel-cell EVs will be announced?

John O'Dell:  is an AutoObserver Senior Editor. Follow @AutoObserver on Twitter.