Nissan EV does it!

Nissan is about to bring the world’s first mass-produced electric vehicle to the mainstream car market in Europe, marking the start of a process that will eventually see its entire range powered by batteries. William Davis talks to Andy Palmer, Senior Vice President of Nissan’s Global Planning and Programme Management Division about the process involved in bringing such an innovative machine from the lab into the showrooms of Europe

It wasn’t all that long ago that electric vehicles (EVs) were seen very much as the poor relation in the growing family of alternative cars – often simple and inferior adaptations of standard cars, they were slow, unresponsive, impractical and perceived as unsafe. They were also plagued by short battery life and a lack of recharging infrastructure, while the batteries themselves were often bulky, taking up valuable cabin or boot space and adding greatly to the overall weight of the car.
All this is about to change now with the launch of Nissan’s Leaf, first in Japan and America and then in Europe. The Leaf is the world’s first mass-produced electric vehicle, designed specifically for the mainstream market and taking on established petrol, diesel and hybrid cars head on.
With a range of 100 miles, the Leaf will be able to go without the plug socket for more than double what first generations of electric cars managed and should allay driver fear that they will become stranded after running out of power, while the relatively clean engine represents a 60 per cent improvement in CO2 emissions against conventional petrol and diesel cars.

Nissan also plans to work with public authorities as well as private companies to help dramatically improve the recharging infrastructure that will enable Leaf drivers to “fill up” with almost as much regularity as those driving conventional cars do now at the petrol station. Nissan also hopes that European governments will act to improve the network of electric recharging points. This is something already pledged by the new coalition government in the UK which recently talked of “mandating a network of electric recharging points” in its coalition agreement.
Nissan projects that by 2020 one in 10 new cars will be electric and has itself committed to making its entire model line-up electric in the future. While dates on this may be a little vague, with the production of the Leaf and with its broad commitment to electric cars Nissan has nailed its colours firmly to the electric motor mast and stolen a lead on all other mainstream manufacturers. Of course this hasn’t happened overnight and together with the years of research and development into the engine technology, the new battery units and storage capacity, the design and manufacture of the car itself and exhaustive market research, Nissan has also developed a sophisticated route to market that will be as important in ensuring commercial success as the innovation that keeps the Leaf on the road.

Andy Palmer, Senior Vice President of Nissan’s Global Planning and Programme Management Division, has specific responsibilities for the company’s product planning, program management, market intelligence, global IS, global LCV, infiniti and zero emission business units and has been leading the team to bring the Leaf to Europe. While the development of the technology and the car itself has largely taken place in Japan, the research and development role of Palmer’s team is seen as equally crucial in the Leaf’s success as a serious mainstream contender in the domestic vehicle market place.
“There are a couple of areas that we get involved in,” he said. “First of all, we have been responsible for setting specific European targets for the vehicle – performance, control operation and how the thing feels, for example.
“We have also been involved in developing the new infrastructure needed for the vehicle, making sure that drivers can plug it in at different locations. This has involved liaising with groups all over Europe like the Technology Strategy Board and the Energy Technology Institute in the UK.”

Perhaps the most crucial aspect of this research for Nissan has been the detailed analysis of the competition – and not just in terms of existing electric vehicles, but also other alternative vehicles like hybrid cars and those driven by a new breed of hydrogen-powered engines. This process was started more than 18 months ago when the decision was made to launch Leaf in Europe and scrutiny had to be made both of products on the market at that time, but also of products Nissan predicted would be on the market at launch.
“In terms of our natural competitors like hybrids there was not really anything to compare with the Leaf,” explains Palmer. “So we focused our attention on what we knew would be on the market and our main competition – cars driven by the old internal combustion engine! “So we looked at what the Leaf needed to be from a customer viewpoint compared to those mainstream models – the way the car feels inside and on the road and the way the car operates. We had to make sure people felt comfortable and familiar with it, which is why if you move from a ford focus into a Leaf, it’s not going to be vastly different.” Of course, as a truly global concept, the Leaf has to appeal to drivers in very different market places around the world making this type of research area specific – cars in the US are designed for very different markets than those in Europe, for example. “Europe is vastly diverse in this sense,” explains Palmer. It includes countries like Russia and if you take the way a customer drives a car in Russia, compared with how they drive in France and how they drive it in Germany, it’s vastly different.
“And that is why our research centres across the globe as setting specific targets for specific areas – and this also applies to the necessary infrastructure we have to build to ensure recharging is simple, convenient and available. “We feel we are at a bit of an advantage over other fuels because you’re never very far away from a three-pin plug in most of Europe, so if you draw the analogy with hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, it’s clear to see the Leaf ahead of the competition – you’re never very close to a hydrogen recharge point and I believe this is one of the reasons why hydrogen is lagging behind. “We often get the question about why hydrogen should not be the front runner and this is why infrastructure becomes very important,” he added.
While Nissan works out this complicated process of improving the recharge infrastructure across Europe, the design team in Japan have simplified the actual process of doing the recharging enormously with a simple charge socket under the front bonnet. This simply plugs into a standard 13 amp socket using a specially supplied cable. That will provide about an eight-hour charge and what Nissan is proposing is to install a dedicated line to Leaf-owners’ homes that is capable of delivering 16 amps, which will fully charge the batteries in about six hours.

“That eight-hour charge assumes that the battery is completely flat,” Palmer continues. “So often the customer will get home in the evening and be at 40 or 50 percent charge so it obviously takes a lot shorter time to recharge – maybe only three or four hours.
“In terms of driving distance that will give you 100-mile range – but you shouldn’t think of it in terms of 100 miles to live with during the day. That’s simply the range on that charge. What we hope people will do is charge the car at the work place, the train station or the shopping centre.
“And in terms of driving longer distances in one journey, we will have the infrastructure in place that means you can stop at the service station, put the car on a super fast charge for 15 minutes and it will charge it to 80 per cent of its capacity.”
Perhaps one the most innovative aspects of the Leaf is the battery life itself, something of a curse in previous electric vehicles. The electric motor is ‘fuelled\' by a Nissan developed laminated lithium-ion battery with a power output of more than 90 kW. The 48-module battery is mounted under the seats and floor of the car taking up little of the cabin’s capacity. Regenerative energy reclaimed under braking and coasting is fed directly to the battery to ensure a minimum waste of energy.
But while previous batteries lost the ability to retain a full charge after a relatively short useful life, the Nissan batteries are designed to retain 80 per cent of their charge after 10 years – a degradation in performance better than most internal combustion engines.
“Degradation on an internal combustion engine is something people expect and live with,” explains Palmer. So 80 per cent after 10 years on the battery is good and we want to reassure customers because there remains an element of doubt about battery life with most people experiencing complete battery failure in mobile phones or laptops in a very short space of time.”
Of course, while Palmer’s brief is to convince traditional drivers of standard mainstream family cars that electric vehicles can offer them the same flexibility and practical solutions to their transport needs, another central focus to establishing the Leaf in the family car market will be to emphasise its green credentials – and therein lies its true innovative qualities.
“The innovation in the Leaf is in its whole concept,” says Palmer. It’s first of all affordable, it’s also a dedicated platform that brings emission-free motoring to the mainstream.
“This is not a converted internal combustion engine vehicle. This is a ground-up design and a ground-up platform. It’s unique and you’ll sit in the car and you’ll think where are the batteries because you’ll expect some sort of huge bulge in the boot or in the floor or seats. Yet you’ll sit in the car and not perceive it to be any different from the normal family car in terms of space.
“The battery, the modules and the cells are constructed in a way that we can package those and stack those to suit the platform so obviously the fuel tank space is taken up by battery but we also use some of the unused space in a normal car like beneath the front seats and underneath the rear seats. The whole concept Is the innovation here really.”

In terms of its green credentials Nissan believes the Leaf is the beginning of a new era of clean motoring and Palmer is keen to outline the direction Nissan has taken with its future model development.
“Nissan’s chosen route is zero emissions and to do that we are committed to making our entire fleet electric and we see the Leaf as leading us in that direction. Obviously other manufacturers have chosen their own routes – and some are different – but we firmly believe that were going in the right direction with Leaf.
“It produces no emissions from the tailpipe, which is why we have chosen the EV route and not the hybrid route.”
It’s a brave move from Nissan but it is one Palmer is convinced will both enhance the manufacturer’s reputation but also play a significant part in reducing harmful emissions and cleaning up our environment. “Nissan’s has always had a good reputation for reliable, affordable family cars and it’s obviously done very well,” Palmer concludes. “Leaf is a family car; it’s also affordable and reliable. “Most importantly, though, it moves the Nissan brand forward and further than we’ve gone before and will have a halo effect, which will be immense. It’s a real driver for the brand.”

Published: Friday, 3rd September 2010 by Adelle Kehoe