It was in February this year that Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Nissan and Renault hinted towards the domination of low-priced electric cars. In Auto China 2016, Carlos revealed that Nissan is currently working on producing low-priced, low-energy electric cars. It’s not like this is the first time electric cars are being produced, there are already a number of electric cars out there like Nissan LEAF, Renault ZOE, BMW i3, Ford Focus Electric and Volkswagen e-Golf but it’s not easily affordable.
Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Nissan and Renault. Source: Getty
Carlos Ghosn was once determined to make the Renault-Nissan Alliance the world’s electric vehicle leader but the vehicle and sales production target have been a concern regarding this matter of Alliance. Apart from that for companies that are not founded in China, the sales of electric cars has always been a struggle.
Nissan's earlier shot at electric cars; Nissan Leaf. Source: Inside EVs
At the Auto China 2016, Carlos showed his concerns regarding the sales of these electric cars,
“Well I suppose by ‘new energy vehicle’ you mean electric cars, okay, so let’s talk about electric cars. About electric cars today we have an offer which is what I call a high spec offer, high spec offer. Nissan introduce it with the Venucia model and Renault will be introducing it with the Freelance Electric that will be introduced to the Chinese market following commitment made by Renault to introduce electric cars. This is what I call high spec which means high price with very good performance but today these models are not selling very well in China. What are selling in China are lower spec models, more affordable price, so we are both from Renault and Nissan continue to develop high spec model by making it lower cost, more autonomy, more range, that’s one thing but also we are working very hard into introducing a low spec affordable electric cars and with this we are working with our friends from Donfeng because we think that in order to be a big player in the Chinese market we need both offers – high spec, low spec, higher price, lower price – because I believe that the support that the Chinese government is giving to electric cars is going to continue and it’s going to be stronger.”
Since the issue of global warming is a serious one and needs attention right away, Carlos’s plans of electric cars might actually help in subduing this issue to some extent!