Japanese carmaker Nissan Motor Co plans to start producing electric vehicles in the US, a newspaper reported yesterday.
It would be the first time that a Japanese automaker mass-produced electric vehicles overseas, the Nikkei Shimbun business daily said.
The company is seeking low-interest loans from the US government to develop green vehicles and plans to invest US$518 million dollars, which could more than double depending on demand, the daily said.
Under the plan, Nissan will build electric-car assembly lines at a plant in Smyrna, Tennessee, the location of Nissan North America Inc’s headquarters, the newspaper said.
This facility will be capable of churning out 50,000 to 100,000 of the eco-friendly vehicles a year by 2012, it said.
In Japan, Nissan plans to assemble up to 50,000 electric cars a year starting next year, with some of these vehicles to be exported to the US, the report said.
It also plans to mass-produce electric cars in Europe and possibly in China, hoping to raise its production to 200,000 units a year by 2012.
Other carmakers are racing to produce fully electric cars.
US-based Tesla Motors has a prototype electric car that is scheduled to be produced by 2011. Toyota Motor Corp said it plans to sell electric vehicles in the US by 2012, while Mitsubishi Motors Corp will sell a new electric vehicle by 2012 priced at US$31,000, Nikkei English News reported on Thursday without citing sources.
In China, Dongfeng Motor Corp (東風汽車) and a Dutch-based company plan to cooperate in developing and making electric cars, the companies said on Friday.
Detroit Electric Holdings, a startup company that owns the electric drive technology to be used in the cars, plans to license it to Dongfeng for testing and use in its electric vehicles, Detroit Electric’s chairman and CEO Albert Lam (林光宇) said in an interview.
The two companies are also discussing forming a joint venture to manufacture, assemble, produce and supply the Detroit Electric’s electric drive technology to the Dongfeng Group and other vehicle manufacturers.
Financial details of the tie-up were not announced. Nor was there any word on when they hoped to produce the vehicles.
“The more I learn, the more I believe the electric car is the future,” said Lam, who formerly worked with Lotus and Ford Motor Co, among other automakers.
If it succeeds, Detroit Electric would be among the first to mass-produce an electric car driven purely by a noiseless battery-powered motor. It says its electric drive systems will enable extended-range models to travel up to 325km on a single charge.
China’s BYD Auto (比亞迪汽車) has introduced the plug-in hybrid F3DM for fleet sales in December.
It runs up to 100km on a single charge before reverting to its conventional gasoline engine.
Despite China’s endorsement of electric vehicles to reduce automobile emissions and limit the country’s growing reliance on imported oil, so far their use has been limited in China to a few experimental programs. Among other challenges, cities lack the infrastructure to enable consumers, most of whom live in high-rise apartments, to recharge the vehicles.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS