SanDust said:
Not that I feel this way, but one could ask: And what, pray tell, has Nissan done, besides develop second rate batteries, take advantage of the heavy lifting done by GM on the tax credit, and suck down taxpayer money?
I jotted down a few statements Nissan has made over the years. They certainly cannot be held accountable for everything, but it's interesting to hear this with the benefit of hindsight. Although I give them a lot of credit, I don't think that they are a model company either. I would certainly not want to be at their mercy and I firmly believe that market competition is our friend. For example, I would like to know what kind of battery warranty would Nissan have offerred if GM didn't move ahead with an 8 years 100,000 miles warranty for the Volt.
1. We don’t have a capacity problem. We can sell hundreds, we can sell thousands,
we can sell tens of thousands. It’s an issue of market demand and infrastructure.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0LkwBgQdtg&t=91" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
2. Our engineers have developed a lithium-ion battery that goes 100 miles of real-world
range. We are completely confident in its performance, its durability and the amount of time it will work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0LkwBgQdtg&t=117" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
3. The mayors of San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland have all talked about making the
Bay Are an EV capital. So everybody is seeing and everybody is now working towards
supporting the introduction of EVs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0LkwBgQdtg&t=243" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
4. I know that there is some problems with getting the charging infrastructure going. Do you
know what plans are there for this?
I don’t know if I’d use the world problem. What I would use is that there are plans to get
the charging network out there. Here in California there are almost 4,500 charging station
already in the ground. Even as we sit here today. Now, they are using the technology that
was deployed back in the early 2000s. All you have to do is to take the cord off, take the
plug off the end, put the new plug on and they are ready to go.
The state of California is already looking at it and there is going to be a bid process to pick
a supplier to actually do that. So right away, there is 4,500 charging stations in California.
San Diego for example, there is gonna to be an additional 2,500 charging stations going in
the ground beginning in June and July and be all up and running by December of next year
(i.e. 2010). So there will be a charging station within every 5 miles, you will have access to
public charging.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIkDJS3oFNo&t=212" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;