All About Japan Autos

The Nissan Leaf will be on the market by December, and now that it’s almost here, Nissan has set a bigger goal.

“Bullish on green cars, the chief executive of the Renault-Nissan automotive alliance said Monday they plan to produce and sell 500,000 electric vehicles a year around the globe by the end of 2013,” says the Boston Globe.

The question is, how many of these vehicles will make it to the United States. Renault-Nissan hasn’t given a number, but egmCarTech and Detroit News say Nissan hopes to sell 20,000 Leafs and manufacture 200,000 battery packs in the next year, and sell 150,000 electric vehicles in the United States by 2013.

There are ambitious goals, and despite the hubbub that the US isn’t ready for electric vehicles because our life styles and infrastructure can’t support them, Nissan and Renault are positive. “Carlos Ghosn, who leads Japan’s Nissan Motor Co. and France’s Renault SA, said he was optimistic that consumers will warm to electric cars as his companies take a major plunge into the zero-emission vehicles,” the Boston Globe explains. “‘I don’t think for the first three years the issue will be, ‘Are you going to be able to sell everything you produce?’ Because there is such a curiosity about the car and attention to the car,’ Ghosn told reporters in Washington.”

Others are more realistic. Reuters says there are limitations, and one of the most important is how fast consumers will adopt the new technology. “That is something we observe in a lot of industries,” says Thierry Koskas, head of Renault’s electric vehicle project, “when you introduce CD, DVD, Blu-ray, you have early adopters who jump straight away and people who wait.”

Koskas has a point. The best way to determine the EV market’s success is to wait, and this isn’t just good advice for manufactures, it’s good advice for consumers. Before investing in an EV, observe how it does on the market. See if cars like the Nissan Leaf and Ford Focus Electric suit your lifestyle. If they don’t, wait a while for prices to decrease and more places to charge to pop up before buying one.

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