Top Down Auto Blog : Nissan races to install electric-car chargers: "With Nissan planning to roll out its first electric vehicles in five states next year and nationwide in 2012, the Japanese automaker is racing to set up a recharging network quickly enough to be ready for them.
Tennessee, Arizona, California, Oregon and Washington are the states getting the vehicles first; they won't be available in Texas until sometime in 2012.
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, said Mark Perry, director of product planning for Nissan North America Inc., 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."
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