Nissan Motor Company, NEC, and its subsidiary NEC Tokin are investing in a joint venture that will turn out 65,000 vehicle sized lithium ion batteries a year, commencing with an initial capacity of 13,000 units per year in 2009.
The aim is to make battery powered vehicles, exemplified by the Nissan Pivo concept shown in 2005, a commercial reality.
The new venture is to be called the Automotive Energy Supply Corporation, (AESC) and manufacturing will be located at Nissan’s Zama facility in Japan. The batteries have a compacted laminated configuration said to deliver twice the power relative to conventional nickel metal hydride batteries wilt a cylindrical configuration. The first commercial application is to be small fork lift trucks, to be followed by Nissan electric vehicles to be introduced into the US and Japan, as well as a Nissan hybrid vehicle in 2010. By 2012, Nissan plans to mass market electric vehicles to consumers globally. AESC has already been appointed as a supplier of lithium ion batteries to Project Better Place, a $200 million backed Palo Alto, California based venture. Project Better Place and the Renault-Nissan alliance are planning to deploy zero emissions vehicles in Israel and Denmark in 2011.
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