After Renault with its Twingo, it is now Nissan's turn to work on an affordable electric city car, priced at less than 20,000 euros. The latter will be developed by Ampere, the Renault group subsidiary dedicated to electric cars. And this is what we already know.
If some manufacturers like Ford and Volvo have relaxed their electrification targets, all cars sold in Europe in 2035 must be 100% electric. And Nissan is obviously no exception to this rule dictated by Brussels.
A city car based on the Renault Twingo
The Japanese firm is fortunately already well advanced, since it notably markets its Ariya, which we were able to try. But it obviously does not intend to stop there, while it plans in particular to launch an electric replacement for its Micra, which could in fact be a cousin of the new Renault 5 E-Tech. Last year, Nissan also lifted the veil on the astonishing 20-23 concept, announcing a cousin of the Alpine A290, with an extravagant and assertive style to say the least.
But the firm, which has just improved the V2G technology of its Leaf in the United States, still has other projects. And among them, that of designing a small electric city car, even more affordable than its future Micra cousin of the R5 E-Tech. If the Yokohama-based manufacturer has not yet made an official statement on this subject, it is in fact a communiqué just published by Ampere which alerts us. Ampere? It's what ? It is quite simply the subsidiary of the Renault group dedicated to electric cars.
And now the company gives us some interesting information on the Japanese manufacturer's projects. Indeed, we read that “ after a first successful technological collaboration on its soon-to-be-released Compact EV, Nissan commissioned Ampere to study the development of its next A-segment electric vehicle “. But that's not all, because the subsidiary indicates that “ this car would thus benefit from Ampere's innovations as well as the work carried out on reducing costs and development times ».
And precisely, the press release in which this quote appears details all the innovations currently being developed by the subsidiary of the French group, and which will notably benefit the future Renault Twingo. From there to saying that Nissan's next city car will share its underside and all its technologies with this car, there is only one step that we will take without hesitation. But what should we expect from this car, which should logically display a very low price ?
Under 20,000 euros
In fact, we know that the Twigo will cost less than 20,000 eurospositioning it below the R5 E-Tech which will start at around 25,000 euros. And obviously, we expect it to be the same thing for Nissan's next city car, which will use the technologies of its French cousin. And precisely, what will they be? Already, it is more than likely that it will have the right to cobalt-free LFP (lithium – iron – phosphate) batteries, which have the advantage of costing less than NMC (nickel – manganese – cobalt).
And this while Renault recently confirmed that it wants to reduce the price of its electric cars by 20% by 2026. Currently, you should know that the battery represents around 40% of the total cost of a zero-emission car (at 'exhaust). But that's not all, because the manufacturer also wants to call on la technologie cell-to-pack at the same deadline. This is characterized by integration of the battery cells directly into the pack, without an intermediate module. This again allows production costs to be reduced.
A little later, Renault also wants offer cell-to-chassis technologywhich this time integrates the cells directly into the chassis, further reducing costs. However, this may cause some problems in the event of an accident. From now on, all that remains is to know when Nissan plans to launch its affordable electric city car, but there is no doubt that this should be done in a relatively short time since the marketing of the Renault Twingo is planned for 2026. Even if the manufacturer does not has so far revealed nothing on this subject…