Renault sees demand for as many as 50,000 electric vehicles in 2011, the year the carmaker will begin selling such zero emission cars in Denmark, Israel and Portugal, engineering and quality head Jean-Louis Ricaud said on Thursday in an interview with Reuters. Ricaud confirmed the electric car will be based on the Megane platform and called the 'Fluence'. The company intends to launch electric versions of conventionally-powered Renault cars before eventually offering a full family of electric vehicles, Ricaud said. While fuel costs will be a major incentive for customers to switch to electric vehicles, Ricaud acknowledged that the speed at which the concept becomes reality will depend heavily on individual countries' legislation and investment in infrastructure. Looking beyond the early markets for Renault and Nissan Motor, the Japanese ally in which Renault has a 44 percent stake, Ricaud sees other European markets following suit quickly. Renault unveiled a "zero emission" concept car based on the Kangoo Be-Bop at the Paris Auto Show. Ricaud said the vehicle's total emissions, taking into account charging its battery, would be "at worst" up to 60g of carbon dioxide per kilometre, depending on which country and therefore which form of power generation was used. The current fleet average for CO2 emissions for European carmakers is 158g/km, and if legislation approved by the EU environment committee last month gets the go-ahead from the European Parliament, they will have to cut this to an average of 130g/km. "We think the electric vehicle has a major place in the future," Ricaud said, adding that growing energy demand from emerging markets like India and China would push up fuel prices, providing a strong incentive to find other solutions. Nissan is due to begin selling electric vehicles in the United States and Japan in 2010. (Reporting by Helen Massy-Beresford and Benoit van Overstraeten; Editing by Greg Mahlich)