Nissan Prepares To Launch Its EV; Provides Test-Drives in "Mule" as Sample
By John O'Dell July 31, 2009
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
YOKOHAMA, Japan -- It's a cliche, but that doesn't make it less true: Get into Nissan's latest electric vehicle test car, stomp on the "gas," and the quiet that accompanies the rather serious acceleration is nothing short of remarkable.
That can be said of almost any all-electric vehicle, lots of torque and lots of quiet are characteristics of their high-revving electric motors.
What makes Nissan's quiet torque worth writing about is that it is almost ready to hit the market.
On August 2 (August 1 in the U.S.), Nissan will unveil the preproduction "concept" of the five-seat hatchback electric vehicle it plans to begin offering for sale in select regions of the U.S. and Japan next year.
We'll have pictures as soon as Nissan takes the covers off the car, and we can tell you now that what you'll see is, essentially, the car the Nissan will place in dealerships.
It won't be as fancy as the concept, which is tricked out with all sorts of flash and high-end treatments to impress -- but Green Car Advisor has been assured by Nissan people who know that the concept is "99 percent there."
Affordable Price
Word also is that the retail price of the EV will put it in Altima territory. Looking at the high end of the Altima lineup and adding a bit for the electric drivetrain and batteries, that would be somewhere in the mid $30,000s.
The purchase price might even be less -- Nissan officials tell us they are still undecided on whether to sell the car and lease its lithium-manganese battery pack, or to sell both.
Leasing the battery could get the car down into the mid-to high $20,000s, with buyers on the hook for another $100 a month of so (we're guessing here) for the batteries.
Lease or Sell?
The argument for leasing is that if you buy a gasoline car, the gasoline isn't part of the deal, and the battery pack in an EV (plus the electricity that it stores) can be likened to the gas needed to make a conventional car go.
Opponents of leasing say that because the batteries are an intergal part of the car - they actually help stiffen the frame and provide a low center of gravity for improved handling - and that they are really an important part of the powertrain.
Leasing them would be akin to selling a conventional car and leasing the fuel-injection system, and that would be a hard sell, the argument goes.
We think the leasing idea makes sense, but we also see it as a hard sell that would require a tremendous effort by Nissan sales people. We don't expect a decision from Nissan until a lot closer to the as-yet-unannounced on-sale date.
Charge It
The test mule was oufitted with the same charging system as the production car will have, we were told. It's accessed via a small door in the nose of the car that conceals recepticals for two types of charging connectors: one for 110- or 220-volt "normal" charging and one for a larger, fast-charge hookup.
The system will take about 11 hours to charge at 11 volts, 6 hours at 220 volts and 30 minutes on the fast-charge system -- a system Nissan is hoping to persuade various cities and independent vendors to install in areas where the car will be sold.
An engineer told us the fast-charger needs a 50-kilowatt power supply and costs about 3.5 million yen in Japan. That's about $45,000 U.S., depending on the daily exchange rate.
A Test Run
As part of a media preview this week, Nissan brought a group of journalists to Japan to visit its new corporate headquarters in Yokohama, attend an advanced technology demo at its test track in nearby Oppama, and see the prototype EV unveiling.
A key part of the event was the opportunity to test-drive the latest EV "mule," a test car based on the Nissan Tiida (Versa in the U.S.) and containing the same powertrain that will be in the final retail car.
Our impression after a lap around Nissan's Grand Drive track is that the car is everything you could want in a daily driver from a power perspective. The mule handled well, but we'll have to wait for a drive in the real thing -- how the mule handles doesn't really matter. (And with a nervous Nissan engineer in the passenger seat we weren't able to push it much, anyhow.)
The mule does't have the entire instrument panel and control setup we're told will be in the real EV, but the controls that were there, a tiny round "shifter" and a small push-pull lever for the electric parking brake, function well.
With an electric vehicle offering a gearless transmission and the options of park, neutral, go forward or go backward, we're going to have to come up with some new language -- that little round knob isn't a gearshifter anymore, it's a directional selector, or some such.
Nissan claims a top-speed for its EV of 140 kilometers per hour (about 90 mph). We weren't permitted to top out the mule, but on several straightaways on the track we found its acceleration to be better than you'd find in most small sedans.
For a rough idea: We counted about 7 seconds from a slow rolling start to 60 mph (100 km on the speedo) and around 6 seconds from 25 (40 km) to 68 mpg (110 km) coming out of a curve and hitting a straightaway.
And, of course, it was quiet while doing all this.
Can't wait to get behind the wheel of the real thing.
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