Nissan pledges electric car in U.S. by 2010

Car companies have been promising fully electric autos for decades, but it seems like we're finally on the cusp of fuel-free, silent running. The Tesla, Zap, and Six50 EVs will all be on the road within the next year or so (we're betting on "so"), and GM's much-anticipated Volt plug-in will come a year after that. Nissan would like to politely remind you that it too plans to have an all-electric auto in U.S. by 2010, all the while lining up charging stations at places like commuter parking lots and train stations. The company recently showed off an all-electric version of its popular (in Japan) Cube at the NY Auto Show, so it's a safe bet that the above is Nissan's vision for the all-electric future of American highways. Shame they couldn't have picked something a little sportier.

[Via Autoblog]

[Colin Potter @ Jul 10th 2008 4:58AM]

Scion XB + Rebadge + White Dinner Plates as Hubcaps = Electric styling!

[Dragonpark @ Jul 10th 2008 7:44AM]

I stopped paying attention at Scion xB... That care looks like absolute crap.

On a side note... maybe they should look into the drag resistance of this electric car. A very large percentage of the energy required to move the vehicle is to over come the air resistance. Reducing the drag would have a great effect in increasing the range of any car, electric cars not excluded.

[Andy @ Jul 10th 2008 5:00PM]

Indeed. all they did was take the scion xb (which isn't entirely ugly. Depends on your style) and make it uglier.

I saw in a car magazine when I bought my xb that nissan was going to release the cube soon, which never came to be, but looked exactly like an xb knockoff.

Oh, and if you think it's ugly, find me a car that has that much head and leg room new for under 16k

[RJ @ Jul 10th 2008 10:28PM]

You guys realize that Nissan has been producing the cube since 1998, right? That's well before the Scion xB/Toyota bB started showing up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Cube

[Lediur @ Jul 11th 2008 1:50AM]

The Nissan Cube is well known for being different on one side than it is on the other.

At least you'll get looks when you drive past in one of these.

[zomg0t @ Jul 10th 2008 5:00AM]

lololol electic!

sorry...

[gad get @ Jul 10th 2008 5:00AM]

Grr... you beat me to it!

[Joe @ Jul 10th 2008 5:01AM]

Electic?

[gad get @ Jul 10th 2008 5:10AM]

Grrr... you beat me to it!

[Hansel @ Jul 10th 2008 5:04AM]

In order to be electric, cars must be ugly. Fact.

[deyanimay @ Jul 10th 2008 5:12AM]

Tesla must rip the space time continuum.

[Hansel @ Jul 10th 2008 5:27AM]

Nonsense. Anybody can make a good looking electric car when you're asking upwards of $100,000 for it.

[neofolklore @ Jul 10th 2008 9:54AM]

Except Tesla's will cost $60,000 and $30,000

[Michael Chastain @ Jul 10th 2008 11:50AM]

Except the base price of the only Tesla you can currently buy (the Roadster) is $109,000. Considering the difficulty Tesla is having getting the Roadsters that people pre-ordered years ago delivered I wouldn't hold your breath on those "planned" models at $60k and $30k.

[Aaronage @ Jul 10th 2008 5:16AM]

Well no one is gonna take electric cars seriously until they design them properly. Do they really have to make em fuck ugly because they are electric xD

Bring on the hydrogen fueled cars :)

[Yevon @ Jul 10th 2008 12:26PM]

I'm sorry to burst anyone's bubble here, but hydrogen cars take electricity to break apart the H20 bonds. The current trouble being faced by engineers is to use as little electricity as possible as to get more energy from the molecules than energy from electricity. As far as I know, this hasn't happened yet. So, wouldn't it make more sense to just use electricity directly? Also, current gen hydrogen cars are expensive as well, something really, really expensive (anyone got a good analogy here?).

[x3qt0r @ Jul 10th 2008 5:21AM]

why cant these things look "normal" ?

[toxicpiano @ Jul 10th 2008 5:28AM]

electic car? I'm still waiting for an eclectic car

[Colin Potter @ Jul 10th 2008 5:53AM]

booooo! bad joke!

[Kevin Bob @ Jul 10th 2008 5:30AM]

I hold out hope that people have enough reason to purchase electric cars that design wouldn't hold them back. In fact, if the market for these cars exists at all, I would venture to guess that it does not matter to those interested in purchasing them how they look as long as they run off electricity from the grid.

Q: Is there or could there be a practical way to 'charge' an electric car nearly instantaneously, in a way akin to a gas station? It seems possible given my extremely rudimentary understanding of capacitors. Obviously safeguards would need to be put into place, but I imagine with extremely recessed charging tongs such a thing might be possible.

Anyone know?

[Phil @ Jul 10th 2008 7:08AM]

I'd buy it just so I could hack it.

[giyad @ Jul 10th 2008 10:35AM]

Yeah there are devices called quick chargers that can charge a battery to full in ~5 to 20 minutes, depending on the battery technology.

[Rynth @ Jul 10th 2008 6:01AM]

*passes TIm Stevens a spare 'r'*

That should help a little.

[collegekid13 @ Jul 10th 2008 6:16AM]

ohh come one who doesnt like the nissan cube concept.

it looks like a bloated ipod mashed in the scion xb with . . . whitewalls???

ohh alright its ugly but it is electric.

[Sam @ Jul 10th 2008 6:26AM]

what the hell is a telsa

[Macro @ Jul 10th 2008 9:04AM]

Tesla is an amazing new car company started by the guys who invented PayPal they make the Tesla Roadster an all electric car that goes 0-60 in 3.9 seconds. They are also the only car company who makes electric cars that don't look like a discarded shoe. I've seen so many pretty concept vehicles be made that look good yet they rarely get made. They have to make these stupid econo boxes. At least the Chevy Volt looks decent.

[Abuzar Baloach @ Jul 10th 2008 8:50PM]

Tesla is a unit of magnetic field.

[Sam @ Jul 10th 2008 9:02PM]

sorry folks
just picking on the typo in the article
pet peeve

[Good_Bytes @ Jul 10th 2008 7:02AM]

AWESOME fridge on wheels dude!

[iHoppipolla @ Jul 10th 2008 7:26AM]

Is it eclectic or is it electric?

[uagent @ Jul 10th 2008 8:03AM]

Wow...Nothing like a Nissan to make me want a Chevy O_o;;

Is it just me, or do the headlights look....creepy?

[Jody Clarke @ Jul 10th 2008 8:05AM]

i like it. electic or not - its kinda fuky looing...

[Landon @ Jul 10th 2008 8:48AM]

I don't mind it, I like the Scion xB now that they're a little more rounded off. This one looks fairly close to it but I still would prefer the xB...though it's not electric.

[OX4 @ Jul 10th 2008 8:15AM]

With all the whining about gas prices, has anyone stopped to consider how much it'll cost to charge one of these things at a "commuter charging station"?

[Michael Chastain @ Jul 10th 2008 11:53AM]

Assuming such charging stations existed you could your costs to be about 1/4 what you'd pay for gas.

[OX4 @ Jul 10th 2008 1:02PM]

ehm...assuming I have an 11-gallon tank and I can get 30 mpg, I can get about 300 miles out of a $44 fillup at $4/gal. From what I hear you'll be lucky to get 30 miles out of an electric car. That means I have to charge 10 times to get the same mileage out of a tank of gas. Are you saying I'll be able to fully charge my car for under $5 at station?

[Gordon Kane @ Jul 10th 2008 8:47AM]

Fuck sportier -- there are some of us who need headroom because we are over 6ft tall. And then there are those that prefer to drive something that does have their ass hovering 3 inches above the pavement.
But then, I traded my 1998 Ford F-150 in for Honda Element back in 2006 - rather unconventional for a Texan, as well as being over 45.

I see this a perfect platform for all those florists and other delivery / service oriented businesses that are currently running PT Cruisers, HHRs, Scion xBs, and Elements -- an electric fleet vehicle (and plenty of flat space to apply full-body advertising graphics).

[Rick @ Jul 10th 2008 9:31AM]

Exactly! Look at what a hit the Scion xB was with its unintended buyers, older people.

Also with a platform like this there is room for the battery pack without compromising interior space.

Also Dragonpark above mentioned wind resistance. Who cares?

The power required to overcome wind resistance is proportional to the cube of the velocity. In crowded downtown Bankock, Tokyo, Beijing, Manhattan, London, Paris, or London it doesn't matter at 30 MPH.

[Nutsy @ Jul 10th 2008 9:22AM]

I totally understand why many car manufacturers think when they make Electric concept cars they should be the ugliest looking thing in the world....

Its because Most car makers are still in bed with the big oil companies.

Why on earth would they want to promote viable alternatives? They make silly amounts of £$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$ on oil. So in order to make electric and other alternatives slow on the uptake they make the cars look as unpleasing to the eye as they can. So people still buy the pretty oil based cars.

[Rick @ Jul 10th 2008 9:36AM]

Another stupid comment about the oil companies. They don't give a sh-t what this car looks like. They are already selling all the oil they can get out of the ground.

This vehicle will be used as a local delivery vehicle in much of the world where a practical platform such as this is ideal. Also, cable installers, phone repair, mail delivery type uses are also ideal candidates. I think it was Verizon in the Midwest that downsized to small passenger-type vans because they discovered that the bigger the vehicle the more crap their installers/repair guys would toss in them, much of it unneeded. The not only got better gas mileage because they were smaller but also because they carried a lot less baggage inside.

[Anthony @ Jul 10th 2008 10:46AM]

Your comments just don't make sense. Car companies go where the money is. Not the oil.

I personally- if they could refine the lines a little (make it sharper - more like the Honda Element) I'd love one of these. My Civic Hybrid will to be replaced in 2010 so I'm in.

[apread @ Jul 10th 2008 12:06PM]

Oh engadget, you've got a typo in the title. You wrote "electric" where you mean to write "ugly". It's okay, we forgive you

[Koen @ Jul 10th 2008 12:26PM]

It looks like a fridge on wheels! Why didn't they make it more aerodynamic? It would increase the mileage a lot!

[Mark @ Jul 10th 2008 1:42PM]

Function over form. I'd rather have an ugly vehicle and to pay pennies per mile, then to have a good looking car and have to cry that half my paycheck is being used for gas.

Which would you rather do? Laugh at people who are crying at the price of gas? Or spend half your paycheck to drive??

[Sean @ Jul 10th 2008 1:54PM]

I wonder why they call it the Cube...
Oh wait.

[odowd28 @ Jul 10th 2008 3:13PM]

No electric car will have an impact until its sort of normal-looking (or perhaps nice-looking, like the new Malibu), costs less than $20,000, and has a range of at least 300 miles. Oh yeah, and enough are manufactured so that Joe Blow can buy one. If you have enough money to afford a Tesla (or a Volt for that matter), you have enough money to afford gasoline in a conventional car. The biggest demand for electric cars is among low-to-mid-income folks.

[Fray @ Jul 10th 2008 5:18PM]

The problem is that electric vehicles first must become popular enough to make car manufacturers want to mass produce them before the price will drop. Them becoming popular will also drive the car companies to actually invest real money in developing the technology it takes to get that 300 miles per charge and will prompt them to spend money on real designers instead of using Joe the janitors sketches on a paper towel.

However people like you don't want to buy one until after thats all been done.

So the technology is stuck in a catch-22. It cant become popular until after its already popular unless people bite the bullet and accept that electric may not be ideal at the moment but then again it hasn't had the century of commercial R&D that got gasoline based engines to the efficiency they have today (that 300 miles per tank you want) and they never will until people actually buy them.

[Lorin Halpert @ Jul 10th 2008 4:49PM]

What a joke, Israel should be mostly electric by 2010, mainly Renault and possibly Nissan. The car manufacturers probably want to milk the standard vehicals and remaining inventory as much as far as possible :)

[Mikofox @ Jul 10th 2008 7:39PM]

Appears the designers at Nissan have been watching one too many Thomas the Tank Engine movies.

[Jim @ Jul 10th 2008 8:44PM]

What's the big deal... and electric toaster! I've had one in my kitchen for decades now.