Renault Nissan Alliance Getting Recharging Stations in Place for an EV World

Renault Nissan Alliance Getting Recharging Stations in Place for an EV World

By Scott Doggett, Contributor

Assuming the major impediment to creating electric vehicles for the masses can be overcome -- that being development of batteries that are lightweight, powerful, reliable, long-lived, cheap, non-toxic, fast-charging, and easy to recycle and eventually dispose of -- all that stands in the way of a world where the EV is king is the installation of millions of recharging stations.

As frequent visitors to this blog know, there are armies of brainiacs working on the battery problem, and a far fewer number of people working on the recharging-stations problem. Skeptics say EVs will stay niche until motorists feel confident there are enough recharging stations around to rejuvenate their batteries when they need rejuvenating. Gas-powered cars, they say, would have been doomed had it not been for gas stations. Right? Right.   

But if recent events portend things to come, the Renault Nissan Alliance is taking serious steps to overcome the recharging-stations hurdle. Its solution: a mix of public-private and private-private pacts.

Its most recent success story unfolded Wedesday, when alliance CEO Carlos Ghosn and Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates signed a memorandum of understanding that aims to lay the groundwork for use of electric vehicles in Portugal.

Ghosn said the public-private pact represented a new business model that seeks to "develop the necessary conditions for zero-emission vehicles to become a viable, attractive and popular" mode of transport. Socrates said Portugal is willing to act as "a laboratory for future electric cars."

Nissan Renault, like their automotive rivals, aims to sell electric vehicles worldwide by 2012; Nissan's Mixim EV concept appears here. Some EV developers are farther along than others, but all are dogged by the lack of widespread recharging sites. Only the alliance, the fourth-largest automotive group in the world by sales volume, is tackling the problem.

In January, Renault Nissan teamed up with Project Better Place to build a network of 500,000 charging stations across Israel and sell electric cars there.

Then in March, the alliance and Project Better Place announced their second deal, working with Denmark's DONG Energy to bring EVs and recharging stations to the Danes.

And right now, according to an Associated Press report, Nissan is in talks with parking lot and railway companies in Japan on deals to put recharging stations near commuter stations throughout that country.

If I may be allowed to digress, sometimes I get goosebumps just thinking about all the wonderful cars to come. Don't you?

Scott Doggett:  is an AutoObserver.com Associate Editor.