Bets big on electric cars
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18/03/2010
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Business Line (New Delhi)
We will not launch the car in any market where there is no incentive for the consumer. Because the consumer is never going to buy a car which is more expensive because it emits less.
There are many reasons why we are betting on electric cars.
We have the technology, we are selling it in the US. We have the Altima hybrid and the Fuga hybrid. Nissan has the technology to use it in the US market which means it is available for Renault but we're not using it too much because we do not consider it an efficient one. It is complicated, because we have the combustion engine, we use the motor. You have two technologies in the same car. In a certain way because you are still emitting 20-30 per cent less there is no incentive from governments to support you.
Electric car is completely different because this is a zero emission car, completely independent of oil. One set of technology, you don't need a combustion engine, you just have a motor and an inverter. It's a more simple car to make. The only problem is that the electric car doesn't have scale. So for the time to build 1-2 million electric cars you're going to be suffering because you don't have the scale that the combustion engine has.
First we think oil price will move up. I don't think you're going to be for a very long time at the $70-80 range that we are today. Second, the emissions problem is just the beginning of the story. It is not the end which means that the restrictions on CO2 are going to be higher and you are going to be paying more taxes to emit which means that if you have zero emission you're going to have a huge advantage over somebody that emits. Not only in terms of image but in terms of finance.
Oil has become a political issue because most of the developed countries and the emerging markets are dependant on oil which is imported. There is a reluctance to just continue to increase the dependence on oil whenever it is coming from countries you do not control.
All of this, political dependence on oil, price of oil, level of emission and I'm talking without the crisis here. I'm talking just trends. If you have a political crisis making oil a threat, if you have an environmental crisis like all of a sudden you have an inundation somewhere or you have a turbulence in the climate and all of a sudden you have a public opinion starting to react against government because they are not taking enough measures to protect against emission you're going to see the skyrocketing of technologies which are eliminating emission completely.
There is another element I would like also to integrate, there is the fact that today there are 600 million cars on earth being driven everyday.
With the development of India, China and Brazil, the projection is that in 2030-35 there are going to be 2 billion cars, three times more cars circulating everyday.
So I don't think reducing emission by 10-30 per cent is going to make it. You need a radical solution where you say as I cannot stop people from transportation, you're just going to have to imagine a transportation with zero emission. There is no other way.
All of this makes us really believers, that electric is one of the solutions. Not the only solution but just one, you have hydrogen, you have fuel cell car and what helps us is the fact that the reaction of the Governments is very positive. US, Japanese, Portuguese, French, Israeli, Danish governments have all given incentives for the consumer to buy zero emission cars.
They have extended loans to car manufacturers to go for zero emissions. If they did not sense a political advantage or there isn't an interest in society why would they go and spend all this money on a technology like this?
So when you add up all of this I think there is absolutely no way that electric cars are not going to be part of the future.
Mass scale:
End of this year (they will be in the market on a mass scale). We're going to come with 500,000 electric cars a year. The first mass market of cars is going to the US and Japan by the end of this year; 2011 Europe and Israel. In 2012 you're going to have seven electric cars on the market by Renault and Nissan.
Electric cars in India:
I think you have to ask that question to the Prime Minister. We will not launch the car in any market where there is no incentive for the consumer. Because the consumer is never going to buy a car which is more expensive because it emits less. I would like my neighbour to buy a car with no emission. But I am going to buy a car which is a good bargain. I mean everybody thinks the same.
Fuel cells:
Fuel cells are a promising technology. It is the second wave of what you call the zero emission cars. But this is a technology where price has to go down.
Electric car has a much lower price today than fuel cells. But with all the development of fuel cells, I think there will be a moment when fuel cells will have a more reasonable cost and they would become the second wave of zero emission cars.
I still have a small preference for electric and I'll tell you why. You can do electricity out of a lot of things