I’m probably going to seem a little Nissan-centric this month, what with their imminent big announcement August 2nd. But also because I, along with a few other Plug In America members, spent the better part of the past three days meeting with about ten of Nissan’s advanced planning team. They invited us to come to their Los Angeles facility and participate in a wide ranging series of discussions, marketing seminars, and even a drive over to Santa Monica to see what a normal day driving an EV was like. They were a delightful group, younger than all of us (except for Chelsea).
Full disclosure; While we gave them many hours of our time, they did treat us to one dinner.
Today was the last day, and for me, the most interesting. They had scheduled a tour of the Southern California Edison “Smart Garage” in Pomona with the dynamic Ed Kjaer as tour leader. Ed, you may remember, gave President Obama a tour of the same facility a couple of months ago, which may account for the strong support we’re seeing from Obama’s administration for plug-in cars.
SoCal Edison’s Electric Vehicle department is probably the most sophisticated of its kind anywhere, and Ed runs the place. Seeing him describe how plug-ins will be integrated into the newer grid, yet to come, is to fully comprehend what our future will be like. Quiet, clean and powerful cars running on renewable electricity.
It would be beneficial if “60 Minutes” were to produce a segment with Ed describing how this will work. We need to get this information out to everyone as quickly as possible.
The Nissan folks have to be commended for seeking our input, as we’re the only consumer group that has many years of experience with production highway capable EVs. Since their stated goal is to be the first major carmaker to mass market a fully electric car starting next year, they felt it was a good idea to ask us what it’s like to use these cars on a daily basis.
I thought most of the questions would center around the upcoming release of their first car, but these folks are the team that helps envision the cars built 5 years from now, so instead they were thinking of a wide variety of EVs, presumably to cover as wide a market as possible.
There seemed to be little of the reticence we’ve seen from Toyota and Honda for plug-ins. Instead, they were clear that what they were going to offer was going to go over big. We gave them what they were looking for, and what we’ve been wanting a large OEM to ask for. More meetings are planned at our houses so they can see how the solar PV integrates so well with the cars.
Two more weeks till we see their first EV.
6 Comments
This Car is really nice, really good looking and the most important is that it is eco-friendly. The CO2 emissions are increasing much, and the big usage of automobiles last years, means that it will not stop increasing. We should reduce it, with such cars, like this. I hope that car builders will pay more attention to the earth and will care about it much more.
Really Thank you for allowing me to write down this.
http://blog.insweb.com/2009/09/car_insurance_claim_tips.html#comments
The problem here is with the idea of “mass market”. We should be using electric cars on a small and local scale, but use in massive numbers is likely to cause more harm than good to the environment. I have argued this more fully here:
http://selfdestructivebastards.blogspot.com/2009/10/electric-cars-in-small-doses.html
Hope Australia keeps up with the rest of the World in 2010 / 2011, And has Full on Electric Vehicals, And NOT only Hybrid – Electric.
I tried to get an EV Rav 4 many years ago.
So this Nissan looks good to me. Versatile for my lifestyle. Answers the concern of tiny EV cars on the road with big oil monsters such as SUV’s and commercial trucks and vans. would like to see the solar panals on the roof and hood as well. thanks
Just viewed “Who Killed the Electric Car?” and had many suspicions confirmed, namely that if for-profit industries like GM and oil companies can defeat EV technology, they will win in the near term but lose (all of us) in the long term. I’m about to retire from the Nissan plant in Tennessee that will build the LEAF EV and the lithium-ion battery plant next door. Carlos Ghosn’s vision for an affordable global EV is where I’ll focus my attention upon retirement.