Nissan sticks to electric car pledge despite market woes

Nissan has recommitted to selling only zero-emission electric cars by 2030 in Britain and Europe despite a volatile sales market in which the growth in registrations of battery vehicles has caused leading rivals to rein back on their pledges.
The Japanese company said it is also on track for a £3 billion redevelopment of its plant in Sunderland, to construct a third battery-producing gigafactory on the site, and by 2030 to be assembling the next generation of its pioneering Nissan Leaf all-electric car and zero-emission versions of its Qashqai and Juke models.
Executives from the company renewed their decarbonisation pledges as they unveiled plans for each of its electric cars to become “mobile energy units” by 2030 with the capability to use their batteries to power homes. In what Nissan sees as a key differentiator between it and other carmakers, its groundbreaking, proprietary V2X technology will allow electric car batteries to be powered up during the cheap electricity night-time hours and exported back into the home via a bi-directional cable and smartbox when energy is more expensive during the day.
• The car that can power your home for days and cut your bills
At a technology event at the company’s technical centre at Cranfield University, David Moss, Nissan’s European research and development chief, said of the company’s electric ambitions: “Nothing has changed. The industry is going through a challenging time and we are very aware of what is happening in the market but the direction of travel is clear.”
Nissan announced its electric commitments and rescoping of Sunderland last autumn in one of the biggest industrial investments in the UK in years. But since then electric car sales have stalled markedly. In the UK there is confusion over when or whether the sale of new petrol and diesel cars will be banned. Electric sales in Germany, Europe’s largest car market, have collapsed by a third because of the axing of government incentives.
Volvo and Ford, who made bold early commitments on going all-electric by 2030, have both weakened their pledges this year. The UK manufacturers Bentley and Aston Martin have both stalled on their electric plans.