Nissan’s electric adventure began in 2010 with the marketing of the first generation of the Leaf. If the Japanese brand has since struggled in the sector, it is now pulling out all the stops by announcing three new models. With European production what’s more.
Ah, the first Nissan Leaf of 2010. A design… bold, 160 km of autonomy in the best case, in short, it wasn’t fun. The second generation, presented in 2018, corrected the situation a little with more consistent styling and new generation batteries, then the Ariya arrived at the end of 2021 with a new platform shared with the Renault Mégane and Scénic. Still, three models in thirteen years for a manufacturer that wanted to be at the cutting edge of electric technology is still not a lot.
Today, everything changes: Nissan has set itself the objective of going 100% electric from 2030 in Europe (five years before the legal limit, therefore) and announces the color in a press release: the Leaf will be entitled to a third generation, while the Juke and Qashqai, the brand’s two successful SUVs, will go electric. All these beautiful people will be manufactured in the United Kingdom, probably to qualify for the ecological bonus.
Preview of concept cars
Let’s not beat around the bush: we don’t know much more. Presentation date? Battery capacity? Autonomy? Embedded technologies? No information has been communicated. We can just get the beginning of an idea of the look that these three cars will have, since they should resemble three concepts already unveiled by the brand: the Hyper Urban Concept and the Hyper Punk Concept unveiled in Tokyo ago. a few days, as well as the Chill-Out Concept of 2021.
Let’s play guessing games. If it is quite certain that the next Qashqai should resemble the Chill-Out, we also put a coin on a resemblance between the Hyper Urban and the future Leaf; as for Hyper Punk, it undoubtedly prefigures the main lines of the Juke III. The fact remains that these concepts still seem extremely far from reality; it is therefore likely that the production cars will be much wiser.
A production in the United Kingdom
The big announcement in this press release, however, is the investment of three billion pounds sterling (around 3.5 billion euros) to transform the historic Nissan factory in England to electric. Based in Sunderland since 1984, it will take advantage of this windfall to transform itself from A to Z by manufacturing the cars, of course, but also their batteries on site using renewable electricity produced internally.
Finally, let us add that these three electric models will be joined by the next Nissan Micra, based on the electric Renault 5 and produced with it in France, in Douai. A completely European production, therefore, allowing us to maintain the ecological bonus which will be implemented here next year. A real underlying trend for the global automobile industry: more and more Chinese manufacturers are announcing factories on our continent!
These three models are expected to be launched at prices that make them eligible for any French ecological bonus.