Update on the Nissan electric vehicle and battery plants in Tennessee

[txlibdem]

Short version: construction is on track and the battery factory will start cranking out 200,000 battery packs annually in 2012, the nearby Nissan Leaf factory will produce 150,000 Leafs a year, also starting in 2012.

Pres. Obama has made a goal of having 1 million "advanced technology vehicles" on the road by 2015. If you include the Prius as an "advanced technology vehicle" we have already succeeded (soure: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Sales). I thought the President said 1 million Electric Vehicles. It looks like Nissan alone gets us almost half way there.

The Nissan factory in Tennessee will be one of 4 worldwide production facilities for the Nissan Leaf. One is in Japan (the only one that is currently making the Leaf now), the other plants will be in Portugal, the UK and France but may only produce the batteries for the Leaf and not the vehicle itself:

"Sales of the Nissan LEAF – the world's first all-electric, zero-emission vehicle available for the mass market – began in select markets in the United States in December 2010. It will be available nationwide in 2012, when production expands to the Tennessee facility. The Nissan LEAF initially is being produced in Oppama, Japan, and will be equipped with lithium-ion batteries being produced in Zama, Japan. The Renault-Nissan Alliance also will produce lithium-ion batteries in Cacia, Portugal, and Sunderland, UK, as well as in Renault's Flins plant in France."

http://green.autoblog.com/2011/01/30/construction-of-nissans-smyrna-battery-plant-on-schedule/

The whole story, including Nissan's press release is at:
http://green.autoblog.com/2011/01/30/construction-of-nissans-smyrna-battery-plant-on-schedule/

[cutlassmama]

1. Well nice. How are unemployed masses going to pay for this car?

Is Obama going to give one to each American by that date?

[tinrobot]

3. We could start with the new jobs created by making the car.

[Bill USA]

31. I hate to burst anybody's bubble but @ $15.00 (~$26,000/ yr after taxes) how many of these workers

are going to be in the market for a $23,000 car (figure average family includes 2 kids)? That price is almost equal to that workers annual pay after taxes. You have to pay for housing and food, clothes etc too.

[txlibdem]

32. Henry Ford died a long, long time ago

It was his idea that everyone working at his Ford plant should receive a living wage, enough to enable them to purchase one of the cars they were making. Thanks to President Obama and his "Republican friends" those days are long gone. The GM "restructuring" for instance requires that existing GM employees get to keep their pay rates but all new employees will only get $14 per hour. Can you purchase a Chevy Volt with that? Hell no. You are right on with your criticism.

The only good that will come of these plants (and the fact that they are here in America and not somewhere else) is that these workers will be making a wage and will be spending their money on food, entertainment, products and services in the local communities where they are. The government calculates that for every dollar spent on unemployment benefits, the economy nets 1.6 dollars in economic activity. It should be something like that for the jobs in Tennessee at the two Nissan plants. There is a multiplier effect that will cause more jobs to be created than just those few thousand that work there at those two plants.

Sure, they probably won't be able to afford a $20k car, but they will be shopping and spending and THAT will create more jobs, and those people will be shopping and spending... Need I go on?

I have another post here where I talk about the first DVD players, the first cell phones, etc. Almost every new product ever has been very expensive at first. Then factories opened, more production brought economies of scale, the products began to reduce in price and competition with other manufacturers always put pressure on the companies to improve the product even as they were bringing down the price.

That's how the infamous "Moore's Law" about computer chips happened. Computer hard drives used to be fantastically expensive. I still have an old 10 MegaByte hard drive that I paid $150-ish for back in the day. 10 MB. Now hard drives are in the gigabytes, that's about 200,000 times better and by the way, they're less than $100 for that size hard drive. They're faster, more reliable, better and cheaper. Mass production will bring down the cost of electric cars and eventually those people working at the factory will be able to buy them. And so will you, and so will I.

Neither you nor I could afford the first VCR that came out ($5,000). You couldn't afford the first DVD player ($1000 to $1500 IIRC). The first cell phones weren't even hand held, so not even the rich could buy a tiny phone that fits in your pocket. The first cell phones were hard wired into your car and had a handset just like a home telephone. It was their attempt to make this "new" technology seem the same as what people are used to.

This is why the Volt has a gasoline engine and why the Nissan Leaf looks almost like a Nissan Versa gasoline car. They want their new product to look as much like a "regular" car as possible. They don't want to put out something too radical. Like this: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=&imgrefurl=http://aptera2e.org/aptera-2e-pictures/&usg=__TqGCoP-i0CkxNPgk8UzFzLjck90=&h=329&w=662&sz=216&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=EmM3cX02lz_OGM:&tbnh=88&tbnw=177&ei=6PVMTengC4K88ga_qI2fDg&prev=/images%3Fq%3Daptera%2B2e%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1014%26bih%3D403%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=97&vpy=122&dur=2979&hovh=158&hovw=319&tx=125&ty=103&oei=6PVMTengC4K88ga_qI2fDg&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=10&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0">the Aptera 2e. PS, my wife wants one of these. I want a Nissan Leaf or a Ford Focus EV (if I can wait till they get on the market).

[ashling]

4. That is sort of shortsighted

This should create jobs, not only at that facility, but in the associated sectors of the economy, such as auto parts, infrastructure support, etc.

[txlibdem]

6. And those new employees are going to eat and shop

That will benefit restaurants, shoe stores, movie theaters, etc. All to the good. There is no down side.

There is a tone of "only the rich can afford these electric cars" in your post as well. I agree that they cost too much. That is why the Nissan factory is so important: mass production of any product will bring its cost down.

Do you remember what the first DVD players cost? Way too much for you and me. Now we can buy one at Walmart for $30. Does anyone even use video tape any more? NO, the DVD has totally replaced that old inferior technology.

Do you remember how much the first cell phone cost (and how much it weighed)? Too expensive and heavy as a brick, and just as large. Only the rich people had cell phones and those were only in their cars --even the rich didn't have a handheld cell phone. Now people the world over are using cell phones. People are getting rid of their land line phone and using cell phones for all their communications. Again, newer better technology completely replaces old and inferior technology.

It's going to take some time till everyone can afford an electric car. That's just the way it is with any new product. I have a Nissan Leaf reserved --but I haven't bought it yet due to my economic situation. That doesn't stop me from realizing a revolution in the making.

The only question about electric vehicles completely replacing gasoline vehicles is when.

[cutlassmama]

24. Your post made perfect sense to me. You are right.

[ashling]

2. Any idea the number of jobs that will result from this effort?

I am interested in answering some criticism of the SOTU from some students in my government class.

[txlibdem]

8. It's in the link at the OP n/t

[ashling]

12. I must have missed it

all I saw was the number of cars and batteries.

[DCKit]

5. Several new electric vehicle introductions at the Detroit Auto Show this past week.

Surprisingly, Lion and LiFePo batteries are being used in all of them - more expensive, but also lighter. The patents preventing widespread use of NiMH batteries don't run out until 2014, so the choices are limited.

[txlibdem]

7. Oil company sitting on NiMH patent

That is why I never fill up at a Texaco or a Chevron station. Never. GM sold the patent to the NiMH batteries it used in the EV-1 to Texaco and days later Texaco merged with Chevron. No more paper trail.

The NiMH batteries in the EV-1 were almost as good as the ones used in the original Toyota Rav4-EV (like the one that Ed Begley Jr. drives). GM crushed all the EV-1s but the Rav4-EVs are still on the road -- most with over 100,000 miles on them and still going strong.

It was indeed a great battery. Hopefully it will be used again in electric vehicles after 2015. But for the record, the advances in lithium ion batteries so far have brought their costs way down and mass production (like at the 4 Nissan battery plants I cite in the OP) will bring costs down even more.

Now can I throw a little more into the mix? IBM and others are working on Lithium-Air batteries which will be cheaper and carry 3 to 10 times the energy of today's lithium ion batteries (which are themselves at least twice the capacity of NiMH batteries). IBM is throwing their computing power and their labs at the problem and could have a prototype by 2015 or even sooner. This is going to be a very interesting decade for the electric vehicle!

[txlibdem]

9. Xpost: Nissan is installing Level 3 and fast chargers at all its dealerships

On another thread the same tired old argument against electric cars reared its ugly head again: I'm too scared that I'll run out of battery, or I won't be able to go where I want due to range limitations.

The author went on to fabricate a number of scenarios where the available range of an electric car wouldn't be adequate. I won't bore you with those, they're standard boiler plate anti-EV and Right Wing talking points. Some of their calculations might be right if there were no Nissan dealers in the area or on the way. Nissan is installing EV chargers at all its Nissan dealers for use by Nissan Leaf owners.

Consider doing a google search: Public EV Charging Station

(Note that I do mean PUBLIC --anybody can use them) You'll see that they're already starting to be installed; New York, D.C., Oregon, Philadelphia, Norwalk, Connecticut ...
Then there's Washington State:

"The project by the DOT and the state Department of Commerce aims to install stations every 40 to 60 miles, bridging gaps between urban islands of charging infrastructure. A separate, federally funded project called The EV Project will bring 900 electric vehicles and more than 2,000 charging stations (many of them for home use) to the central Puget Sound area."

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2010/07/04/1509504/state-to-bring-electric-vehicle.html

You may be right that a significant number of people will not buy an electric vehicle till they feel confident that charging isn't going to be an issue. McDonalds, Starbucks, malls, public parks, etc., have been identified as sites where EV charging stations will be widespread.

Here's something I didn't know: BP and Amoco gas stations will be getting EV chargers. (source: http://blogs.cars.com/kickingtires/2010/10/bp-to-install-ev-charging-ports.html)

Even some Best Buy stores will be getting EV chargers. (source: http://www.egmcartech.com/2010/10/12/ecotality-to-install-blink-ev-charging-stations-at-12-best-buy-stores/)
=========================================
And all that from just a 2 minute google search...

==========================================
To be fair to the Chevy Volt fans:

Chevy dealers to get EV chargers as well

"SPX Corporation (SPW), Chevrolet's home charging installation partner, will deliver and install hundreds of Level II 240V ChargePoint charging stations to the Chevrolet dealers. Coulomb has already shipped ChargePoint charging stations to hundreds of customers worldwide, including its first Chevrolet dealership in Irvine, Calif. Additionally, Chevrolet has installed Coulomb ChargePoint networked charging stations in front of their corporate headquarters in Detroit for use by employees and guests."

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Newsfeed/Article/124994350/201101191015/Chevrolet-to-Offer-Coulomb-Technologies-Electric-Vehicle-Charging-Stations-to-Chevrolet-Dealerships.aspx

Since I mentioned that Nissan Leaf owners will be able to recharge at the Nissan dealers, I thought it only fair to mention that Chevy is also doing the same thing for Volt owners.

[thereismore]

20. Eventually they will run out of scientist's names for companies/products: Volt, Tesla, Coulomb,

What's left? Millikan, nah, sounds small. Faraday, nah, sounds like a ferret. Maxwell, nah, sounds like coffee. Planck, nah, sounds way too small, and besides, he was a Nazi stooge, sort of. All the names with a bang have been used. The only ones left are Ohm, Oersted, Ampere and Galvani.

[DCKit]

10. See the unreccers crapping on a threat that threatens their worldview.

Yawn.

[txlibdem]

11. Clicking a button can't stop the truth: we need to end oil ASAP, go electric

There are a number of head-in-the-sand types who will never change their mind no matter what you do or say. I do not care about them. If I reach just one additional person with the truth then I'd call that a success.

Oil is killing our economy. We send over $600 Billion for foreign oil each and every year. What could we do with that money if it stayed right here? Roads, bridges, schools, solar power, wind turbines, help people insulate their homes to save money on utilities, etc.

I'd much rather that $600 Billion stay inside our country.

[DCKit]

14. $600 billion.... until you figure in how much we spend "pertecting" that flow.

It'd be cheaper to get off the merry-go-round. Painful, to start, for sure, but cheaper.

[txlibdem]

15. So true. Have any guesses on the true cost of oil?

The American military has been used for several decades to keep the Straight of Hormuz open for oil shipments. How much has that cost us over time?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strait_of_Hormuz

[Nihil]

13. K & R to get it to +1 again ...

:eyes:

I can't actually see *why* people would bother to unrec this particular
thread (unless they are rabid "GM-only" types I suppose) ...
:shrug:

[txlibdem]

16. Electric vehicles make some people feel threatened

Maybe they hate paying 1/2 to 1/4th as much to "fuel" their vehicles.

"I'm going to pay 4 times as much as I should --and you can't stop me!!!"

;-)

[AtheistCrusader]

17. I have only one concern.

I've invested quite a bit in my truck. I don't use it all the time, it's not my commuter, but $20,000 is a chunk of change to me. I expected this vehicle to last me 20-30 years.

I hope we can figure out aftermarket conversions for older chassis to use electricity. Quite a bit of room under that hood if I strip out all the petrochemical dependent equipment.

[txlibdem]

18. Trucks are pretty heavy vehicles

so you won't get the same range on a given number of batteries as you would on a family sedan-sized electric vehicle. That's the only difference you should notice (and you'll need a larger electric motor). If you want to keep your current pickup truck and turn it into an EV, there are EV conversion shops all across the USA and that would be your best bet.

But if you were in the market for a new high end truck, you could check out the (formerly called) Raser Technologies fleet truck. It's not a pure electric, more like the Chevy Volt than anything: it drives on battery power until the battery runs out and then a gasoline engine kicks in to run a generator. The cool thing about the Raser fleet truck? In the even of a power outage you can power 6 homes with the onboard generator! I just learned that they're spinning that off into a new company, funded by a group of private investors.

Kraig Higginson, Chairman of Raser Technologies. "We have been successful in the development of a very promising E-REV powertrain technology. We are pleased that it will soon be offered commercially in America's most popular vehicle, the pick-up truck, by an exciting new electric vehicle company. The new company plans to begin delivering the first extended range electric trucks to fleet customers beginning the end of this year."

http://www.rasertech.com/news/press-releases/raser-closes-transaction-with-major-investor-launching-a-new-electric-vehicle-company-using-raser%e2%80%99s-technology

The new company will be called Via Motors:

If you liked the E-REV powertrain that Raser Technologies brought to SAE 2009 (and later, to the Moab) wrapped up in a Hummer H3 and wondered when that tech might get commercialized, well, wonder no more. Via Motors has now emerged to do just that.

While there hasn't yet been a blaring of trumpets and a shower of press releases, the company's website has just gone live. It reveals their initial offering to be a re-grilled GMC Chevrolet pickup available to fleets in 2011, with sales to individuals coming in 2013. The pickup – available in standard, extended and crew cab – can be optioned with a 20- or 40-mile battery pack and features "exportable power" with 120 volts or 120 and 240 volts.

The electric motor is the Symetron AC induction 200 kW (268 horsepower) connected to an automatic transmission and transfer case that can deliver 4WD. Under the hood, a 2.0 liter engine waits to power the 100 kW generator which feeds the electric motor directly and recharges the liquid-cooled battery packs.

http://green.autoblog.com/2010/12/29/via-motors-raser-erev-truck-fleets-2011/

For more info on Raser Technologies (and a cool video about their new Geothermal Power Plant in Utah):
http://www.rasertech.com/

[tinrobot]

22. I woudn't convert it.

I owned a conversion for a while. Conversions are typically custom jobs and as such, are quite labor intensive. A decent conversion would cost you almost as much as selling it and buying something new. And, if something breaks, you can't just drop it off at the dealer and expect it to get fixed.

Much better to just sell the truck when it's still worth something and buy electric. That crossover point probably won't happen for a few years at least, commercially produced electric trucks are still pretty scarce.

[jeff47]

23. Trucks will probably stay on gas/diesel for quite a while

Assuming one uses the truck for its intended purpose (hauling big and heavy stuff), it's going to be a while until all-electric can provide enough range while under load.

[txlibdem]

19. Here's an unusual video comparison of the Leaf versus the Volt

"Chevy Volt vs. Nissan LEAF"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfjzXId4hRc&feature=related

I'm not sure if there was a clear "winner" but a different take on what each car might be like to own.

[thereismore]

21. I like Volt for the ingenious hybrid idea, while charging stations are few. nt

[eilen]

25. the availability of Volts is very spare

most dealerships are lucky to get one. We looked into it but they were $40,000 plus. We ended up with a Malibu for half the price. I don't need to pay a mortgage payment on my car.

I think running trucks and cars on biodiesel is a lower cost alternative to the fancy expensive battery and electric car. If they would just build some diesel engine cars for the US market. ....

[jeff47]

26. Biodiesel has one big problem

It gels at about 32F. So it won't work anywhere that gets below freezing regularly.

Or at least it won't work without a system to heat the fuel tank and fuel lines, which makes it not really a drop-in replacement for petroleum products. And I suspect people would not like having to wait 5-10 minutes for their gas to melt before they can start the car and drive off.

[thereismore]

27. I did not know that. nt

[txlibdem]

28. Bio fuels? I'm all for anything that gets us off of oil (especially foreign oil)

That's my first priority, getting off of foreign oil. A buddy runs his Chevy pickup on E85 whenever he can. He says it cleans out the fuel injectors and it runs better on gasoline after he runs a couple of tanks of E85 through it. I never noticed any difference in the vehicle whether it was running on E85 or unleaded. I just applaud him for using E85.

The Malibu is a good car, I'm sure you'll be happy with it, by the way. Is it Flex Fuel? If so I suggest you fill up with E85 as often as you feel like it.

We currently import 60% of our oil, around 19% of that is from the middle east, worse than that, 30% comes from "unfriendly" nations, so you would need to run on E85 only 1/4th of the time to end your contribution to middle east oil and their funding of terrorists. Filling up with E85 about 40% of the time will keep your dollars from going to "unfriendly" countries.

[txlibdem]

29. That's one of the reasons why I say that this is going to be a very interesting decade

What percentage of the population are like you? How will those numbers change as more EV charging stations are installed?

What percentage of the population are like me and don't want one single dollar of theirs going to oil companies or the middle east and their terrorist buddies?

How many miles do folks actually need to drive in a day? Will they base their vehicle purchase decision based on how far they "usually" have to go? Or will some of them give in to the FUD and envision themselves one day wanting to take a 600 mile drive some day off in the hazy future and therefore want to have the "backup plan" of a gasoline engine like the Volt has?

Then there is IBM and several other companies and university research labs working on Lithium Air batteries, Zinc Air batteries or some other type that will make electric vehicle batteries far cheaper and far lighter than they are today. When will one or more of them bring a product to the market? Will any of them ever succeed?

We are only just starting with electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids. What will they be like 10 years from now? Sorry I don't have answers, just a feeling that it's going to be an interesting competition.

[txlibdem]

30. To clarify one aspect of the OP

I neglected to state the reasons why I think it's such a great thing that Nissan's electric vehicle plant and battery plant will be coming online by the end of 2012.

Mass production: any product gets both cheaper and better as mass production ramps up. In another post here I mentioned the DVD player, how expensive it was in the early days and how ridiculously cheap it is now --while also getting better and better over the years. The other example I used was the cell phone: only a few people could afford to have a cell phone (and it was wired into their car). Then in the next decade they came out with hand held cell phones (the ones that look like a brick). It took over 20 years but now even people in the poorest of countries has a cell phone. And in many areas the cell phone is all there is: telephone companies never ran the wires to their location so they never owned a land line telephone. Plus, the cell phones got smaller and smaller while getting better and better. I remember being unable to afford a microwave oven when my wife and I were newlyweds. Now they're cheap and have far more capabilities than the first models. This process of reducing costs while at the same time increasing the capabilities will happen to electric vehicles and their batteries.

Jobs for American: each American hired because of electric cars will be spending their money in the local communities wherever they are, so more Americans will have to be hired to keep up with their demand for products and services.

Reducing our dependence on foreign oil: every time you fill up at the gas station you are participating in a twisted system that rewards all the wrong behavior, foreign dictators, oil company attack squads in Nigeria killing peaceful protesters, oil dollars "magically" ending up in the hands of terrorists, etc. I want off this sick and twisted oil merry-go-round. I don't want to play that game any more.

I've made a promise to myself that I will never buy a gasoline vehicle again in my lifetime. That may mean keeping our current vehicle a few years longer than we might have otherwise (perhaps not: it's running great at 7 years old). My next new vehicle will be an electric vehicle, there is no doubt in my mind.