The Nissan brand will get four full electric vehicles and Infiniti will receive two over the next five years, a top Nissan Motor Co. powertrain executive says.
Those six battery-powered vehicles are the Japanese automaker’s share of the 12 EVs that are now planned for Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi through 2022, according to a multiyear business plan announced last September by alliance CEO Carlos Ghosn.
Ghosn’s business plan did not break down the number by brand. But Toshihiro Hirai, Nissan’s corporate vice president for powertrain and EV engineering, detailed Nissan’s share of the arrangement.
The six Nissan vehicles include only full EVs, not hybrid powertrains such as the company’s new e-Power system.
E-Power, introduced in the Japan-market Nissan Note in 2017, is a range-extender hybrid that uses a small gasoline engine to generate power for an electric motor that drives the wheels.
A Nissan survey of drivers found that 95 percent of respondents thought e-Power made the Note more fun to drive, Hirai said.
The EV plan reflects only the next five years. Nissan CEO Hiroto Saikawa separately last month revealed a longer range plan in which, starting in 2021, every new vehicle coming out of Infiniti will be either an EV or an e-Power system vehicle.
