Mr.
Matt
Spangler

Nissan Gunning For Leadership In Electric Vehicles

Company decisions like this inspire me.

via electricpower:

Quick Spin: Nissan Leaf the tip of mass market EV spear

Nissan has gone into a back room, pulled out its Ouija board and decided that the time is right to make a huge bet. The Japanese automaker, along with its partner Renault, wants to be the world leader in pure electric vehicles. Even though you can go buy an Altima hybrid right now, the company didn’t develop its own gas-electric technology (the sedan uses Toyota tech). This time around, Nissan believes the future belongs to vehicles without an internal combustion engine (ICE) and is preparing to put its own foot forward. It’s way too early to know for sure, but Nissan’s gamble could pay off handsomely. ToyotaGeneral Motors and others are adding plugs to vehicles with liquid-fueled engines, but no major automaker has claimed the pure EV pole position. If everything goes right, Nissan will be that automaker.

The flagship vehicle for the automaker is, of course, the Leaf EV hatchback, which was unveiled in August and recently made its North American debut in Los Angeles. We were on hand to take a Leaf mule out for a short (very short) spin and heard directly from Nissan how this unique-looking EV will secure Nissan’s place in the auto industry as tremendous changes take place in the coming years. Follow us after the jump to learn about Nissan’s wager and find out if the Leaf has got the potential to (silently) propel the company to the top.

Autoblog Green

We Win Even If They Lose (VC America)

Earlier this month Tesla Motors announced it had shown a $1 million profit and biking between cars in stand still traffic today in Soho, one of the greatest walking neighborhoods in the world, I was reminded of our car culture and a post I had started but never published.

In the Business Week article “Can Tesla Become A Real Automaker” that came out in late June after Tesla had received their bailout money, writer David Welch argued that Tesla Motors had a rough road ahead if they ever planned on being a profitable car company competing against the big automakers.

Well its certainly a bright note that at least they got themselves to profitability a few months later, but it wasn’t the pouty ‘glass is half empty’ outlook of the author that caught my attention.  Instead it was the storyline of the government supporting an upstart entrepreneurial company instead of the traditional market leaders.

“Tesla plans to use $365 million of its loans to develop the Model S, a five-passenger, $50,000 sedan that is scheduled to go on sale in late 2011. The rest of the money will be used to build an electric-battery plant to sell Tesla’s electric-drive technology to other carmakers.

I could be a bit ignorant on this one and would love to have more facts if someone out there has them, but historically it doesn’t seem that the government funding unproven startups has been a common practice. While Obama’s healthcare battle is not going according to plan, I think we can look to efforts like this that alleviate our doubts that we made the correct choice.  I’m interested in this notion that the government, and the American people, are acting as a Series C financiers for Tesla.  As a shareholder (taxpayer) of that investment firm I support that funding decision.

For their parts, Nissan says it will build an electric car in Tennessee and Ford will use the money to help fund a $14 billion push into advanced-technology vehicles

The financing fits the Obama Administration’s goal of creating green jobs. “We have an historic opportunity to help ensure that the next generation of fuel-efficient cars and trucks are made in America,” said President Barack Obama in a statement.  You mean the promise of putting money into green business and forcing the hands of the big automakers to concentrate on these areas were not just empty rhetoric, but policies that are actually being fulfilled?  Why isn’t anyone using this example in the healthcare debate is perplexing.

“If Tesla does come up with hit technology, a big player like Toyota could use its financial strength and technological prowess to develop a competing car very quickly, Hall points out.”  Great.  I hope they do.  Isn’t that the POINT.  Regardless of whether or not Tesla succeeds and “beats” the other big automotive makers is just whip cream on top.  At the end of the day if Musk ends up revolutionizing cars and gets the other big automakers to push mass produced innovation around better and faster electric cars, I think he’ll walk away with a big fat smile on his face knowing that he essentially accomplished his mission…which, as far as I can tell, is to make millions of electric cars on the road a reality.