Nissan spending almost $1 billion on the Smyrna plant
By Andrew C., 27 Aug, 2010. 0 Comments
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Nissan estimates that it will spend about $1 billion to construct a new facility that builds electric vehicles in the US, according to just-auto.com's interview with a Nissan executive. The US government loan, which was granted in June, will cover the costs. Initial estimates have tagged the facility to cost about 50 billion yen or $516.4 million, which Nissan said was likely to get doubled.
According further to the Japanese manufacturer, the Tennessee facility will have three production modules. Each module, which costs $350 million to build, expects a production capacity of about 54,000 battery units per year. Nissan said that it will get a $1.6 billion grant from the US government to produce batteries and cars in Smyrna.
According to the US DoE, these electric vehicles will be offered to fleet and retail consumers. Annual production is seen to go as high as 150,000 units. Nissan will hire about 1,300 more workers to meet this goal. Nissan also announced that in August, it will unveil three electric vehicles which will be available in global markets in 2011.
Nissan plans to build these electric vehicles in Smyrna, Tennessee, as well as in Japan and Europe. A trial version of these electric vehicles, the first of which will go to the US next year, will hit the streets and will be used by corporate or government partners. The first to be released is the five-door hatchback, quite similar to the Versa, and will have a range of 100 miles per charge (160 km).
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