Tennessee, Arizona, California, Oregon and Washington are the states getting the vehicles [image-nocss] first.
Even before the nationwide rollout, thousands of chargers will be needed. Nissan has ambitious plans to sell thousands of the cars in the first year as it becomes the first automaker in the world to attempt to mass-market an all-electric vehicle.
Unlike the popular hybrids on the market today, Nissan's new Leaf, a five-passenger compact hatchback, won't have an internal-combustion engine onboard to back up the electric power. When the battery runs down, the car stops.
Getting the charging infrastructure in place may be a herculean task, Mark Perry, director of product planning for Nissan North America Inc., told the newspaper, but the automaker vows to be ready when the first cars come to market in December.
"We have to have a different approach from what's been done before because we're looking to mass-market this vehicle rather than just test a few," as General Motors did with the EV1 in the mid- to late 1990s in California and Arizona. "It's a much bigger process than 50 or 100 cars in a city. We're looking at thousands."
About three-fourths of the recharging for the typical Leaf consumer is expected to be overnight in the family garage, Perry said. A full charge would take about six to eight hours.
But for about 20% of the time, other options must be available, such as 20-minute fast-recharging stops at shopping malls, stadiums, light-rail stations, big-box retailers and supermarkets, or at rest areas or convenience stores along interstate highways between major cities, Perry said.
Getting retailers such as Wal-Mart involved requires convincing them that the expense of installing a charging stationabout $35,000 per hookupmakes sense by increasing sales in their stores as people wait for their batteries to charge, Perry said.
BP, the giant British oil company, is a partner with Nissan and ECOtality in the electric-vehicle project, but only for the purposes of evaluating the technology to decide whether further participation might be feasible, BP spokesman Scott Dean said from the company's Chicago offices.
ECOtality has suggested that BP's am/pm markets might be a good place to start putting chargers in convenience stores. But Dean said those stores mostly are independently owned, and it would be each owner's decision whether to invest in the chargers.
Installing chargers in the parking lots of fast-food restaurants is another idea Nissan has suggested. "Studies have shown that the average customer stays at a fast-food restaurant for about 20 minutes, which would be perfect for charging," Perry said.
One drawback will be figuring out how to make money from the chargers, which will cost about the same as a modern gasoline pump or large soft-drink fountain.
There are laws prohibiting the resale of electricity by anyone other than a utility company, so companies that install fast chargers might find other ways to collect from electric-vehicle customers, such as renting the parking space for 20 minutes for $1.75, Perry said. "That would more than cover the cost of the electricity the car would use."
But "revenue models are still being determined," Read said. "It's a very infant industry."
Despite Nissan's belief that most recharging will be done at home, getting chargers in strategic locations will be important to the success of the project, said Colin Read, ECOtality's vice president for corporate development.
"Fast charging will be the great enabler of electric vehicles," he said. "People will want to be able to travel between major population areas without having to worry about stopping several hours for a charge. If the car's 100-mile range is not enough, fast-charging stations must be available, or this will never work."
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