70,000 EVs Just The Beginning, Carlos Ghosn Says

March 11th, 2013 by James Ayre

Renault and Nissan have together already sold an impressive 70,000 electric cars, but that’s just the beginning according to their CEO, Carlos Ghosn. When speaking at the Geneva Motor Show last week, he stated that the EV automotive landscape was changing, along with people’s perceptions of the vehicles.

“The 70,000 people today who drive our electric cars are very happy with them,” Ghosn said, according to an AutoblogGreen report.

“What is interesting about electric cars is that the perception has changed. Four or five years ago, when we started with electric cars, people considered the electric car like a golf cart. But with with Leaf and now the Zoe, these are very good cars – performance, acceleration, styling, comfort. The 70,000 people today who drive our electric cars are very happy with them.”

As Ghosn notes, customer satisfaction with EVs is largely influenced by the local infrastructure of the region where the customer lives. But all that it really comes down to is whether or not the customer has either good range or very widespread charging stations — with one of those, the customer is happy.

With EV charging infrastructure development increasing at a very rapid rate, that should no longer be an issue within the near future, as Estonia’s nationwide system of fast-charging stations for EVs demonstrates.

With regards to Nissan’s and Renault’s future approach to EVs, Ghosn has this to say: “Each company is going to have a different strategy. Nissan preferred not to have cars which are not gasoline engines transformed into electric cars. (And with regards to Renault) I am going to move directly with these cars first: Fluence, Kangoo. Nissan said I’m going to start with the Leaf which exists only as an electric. The Zoe and Twizy exist only as electrics, and from time to time having different strategies is not so bad. You don’t need to put all your eggs in one basket and have the same strategies just because you are allied. You can test different solutions and different approaches, as long as you share basic elements.”

Image Credit: Renault Fluence via Wikimedia Commons

Keep up to date with all the hottest cleantech news by subscribing to our (free) cleantech newsletter, or keep an eye on sector-specific news by getting our (also free) solar energy newsletter, electric vehicle newsletter, or wind energy newsletter.

Tags: carlos ghosn, Carlos Ghosn electric vehicles, EVs Carlos Ghosn, Niassan EVs, Nissan, nissan electric vehicles, Nissan Leaf, renault, renault electric vehicles, Renault EVs, renault zoe

About the Author

James Ayre 's background is predominantly in geopolitics and history, but he has an obsessive interest in pretty much everything. After an early life spent in the Imperial Free City of Dortmund, James followed the river Ruhr to Cofbuokheim, where he attended the University of Astnide. And where he also briefly considered entering the coal mining business. He currently writes for a living, on a broad variety of subjects, ranging from science, to politics, to military history, to renewable energy. You can follow his work on Google+.

Conrad Clement

Carlos Goshn is not frank about the Twizy: I tried it out on a 10 km ride, including 1 km of motorway at 85 km/h (noting that in Switzerland the minimum motorway speed is 80 km/h).

I’d bought it right away if it hadn’t two major built-in handicaps:

1. The lack of door windows — and don’t think of retrofitting a pair of your own making: it has just been made impossible by design!

2. The absence of a rear window, and consequently, of a central rear-view mirror (the only one that’s flat, so you can see the real distances!) — too bad for reverse parallel parking manoeuvres, especially with a silent vehicle pedestrians in the way don’t notice…

As there is absolutely no constraints justifying these lacks, I presume that Renault just doesn’t want to sell this 1-1/2-seater mini city EV of the future…