Nissan is allied with Renault and both have partnered with Better Place. You think the Renault-Nissan electric vehicles would use Better place? Not Nissan in the U.S., at least for now. You think you are confused?
The gist is that you would expect Nissan to use the Better Place format of swappable battery packs and work alongside with the group, but according to an AllCarsElectric post, it does not look like Nissan will use Better Place with U.S. electric vehicle, EV distribution.
Recap Of The Trio. To quickly recap, the Renault-Nissan Alliance led buy Carlos Ghosn bought into the electric vehicle, EV reality quicker and wholeheartedly than other car makers. Better Place, through its CEO Shai Agassi was a crucial step as he explained his vision of the future to Ghosn. Having said all this, you would expect Nissan to make sure its EVs would be compliant with the Better Place system but it seems not. To make it even more interesting, the recent electric prototypes from Renault will be Better Place compliant. Confused yet?
The U.S. Adoption Of Better Place. It seems Nissan does not believe the adoption of the Better Place ideal will happen soon in the U.S.. Better Place wants battery swapping stations everywhere, along recharging stations at parking facilities. It makes certain sense for Nissan to not focus on swappable battery packs. The company wants to be the first one to mass produce and offer EVs by next year, there will not be a Better Place infrastructure then to accommodate a costly development and implementation of swappable battery system. So for the short term future, Nissan’s EVs wil not be Better Place enabled.