Nissan targets 550km electric car by 2020

CleanTechnica

Driving a Nissan LEAF as a city car with short jaunts out of town is fine, I never lack range or charge for such uses, even without home charging. 

But what if you want to drive the Appalachians or roam a UNESCO world heritage site — for hours? Nissan CEO Hiroto Saikawa recently talked about a 300 mile target for 3 years from now, saying, “It’s a usable range, 300 miles. I believe that the technology will lead us there.” Yes, one can do a lot of roaming without potential “range anxiety” with 300 miles of range.

Kazuo Yajima, Renault-Nissan Alliance Global Director of EV & HEV technology, believes the future for cars will be pure electric vehicles — not plug-in hybrids. Certainly, if the charging infrastructure continues to increase (and becomes available practically everywhere) and electric vehicle range doubles or triples, then pure EV sales will increase dramatically.

Survey results from our new EV report. Responses came from over 2,000 EV drivers across 26 European countries, 49 of 50 US states, and 9 Canadian provinces. Responses were segmented according to region — North America vs Europe — and type of electric car — plug-in hybrid vs Tesla vs non-Tesla fully electric car.

The big transition will burst by 2020 for Nissan. “We have developed a prototype vehicle that can run 550 km while keeping the cargo capacity with the same external dimension as the current LEAF,” says Yajima. Inside EVs adds: “That’s 342 miles (we assume using the optimistic Jc08, which would be more like 250 miles of real world/EPA range).

That range figure is achieved by using a new battery cell with increased energy density. Packaging of the cells is more dense too. This information comes after new CEO Hiroto Saikawa earlier talked in April about a 300 mile target for 3 years from now.

If you are interested in getting an electric Nissan sooner, CleanTechnica recently explained that the 2018 LEAF is expected to offer a significant improvement over the 2017 LEAF, but big discounts on the LEAF are still making it attractive.

Here’s more of what we’ve heard: “The refreshed Nissan LEAF is, in addition to a revamped appearance, expected to possess a much improved range and Nissan’s semi-autonomous ProPilot driving features — which will reportedly allow for fully autonomous single-lane highway travel.”

Whether buying today or tomorrow, as a 2015 LEAF driver, I’m sure a Nissan LEAF is almost always a satisfying choice. We assume that’s why so many current EV drivers plan to buy or lease a LEAF next.

Survey results from our new EV report. Responses came from over 2,000 EV drivers across 26 European countries, 49 of 50 US states, and 9 Canadian provinces. Responses were segmented according to region — North America vs Europe — and type of electric car — plug-in hybrid vs Tesla vs non-Tesla fully electric car.

Source: CleanTechnica. Reproduced with permission.