Nissan introduces its connected car vision
LOS ANGELES, CA: During Nissan’s first North American ‘Nissan Futures’ symposium Denis Le Vot, chairman of Nissan North America, Inc., introduced Nissan’s intentions to create a new electric vehicle ‘ecosystem’ – Nissan Energy.
The vision is to connect electric cars to homes and businesses with the potential to feed electric power back to the grids as well as developing new ways to reuse batteries.
Nissan Energy will be implemented through three key initiatives - Nissan Energy Supply, Nissan Energy Share and Nissan Energy Storage
Nissan Energy Supply is dedicated to providing charging facilities not only at home, but while on the road and at the destination.
It utilizes the CHAdeMO charging network that has over 22,000 quick charging points globally and is easily accessed through NissanConnect. Nissan is also working with new customers to ensure that the power supply to their homes is sufficient to ensure that any charging will be conducted in the safest manner possible.
Nissan Energy Share will offer the opportunity to share the high-capacity battery power with an equipped house or building allowing the battery pack to be integrated into the building’s power source saving energy.
The electric vehicle will also be able to be linked up to the local power grid and, in effect, sell back the power to the supply companies. Nissan says “customers will be able to share spare battery capacity without compromising their mobility”.
It has already implemented pilot programs in Japan, the U.S., and Europe developing cost effective equipment that will help bring the availability of vehicle-to-home, vehicle-to-business or vehicle-to-grid to fruition as early as 2019.
Nissan Energy Storage is about providing a second life to an electric vehicle’s battery.
Rather than recycling the battery components in the usual manner, the battery pack can be refurbished and given a second life.
Recycled batteries have a number of uses from forklift trucks to powering sports arenas or storing energy generated from solar panels.
With the growth of the electric vehicle the lithium-ion batteries will be more readily available and as more people replace their vehicles, the need to reuse rather than recycle will become more predominant.
David Schillaci, Nissan’s global head of marketing, sales and electric vehicles said, “Nissan Energy will enable our customers to use their electric cars for much more than just driving – now they can be used in nearly every aspect of the customer’s lives.”
This is what we feel is the ‘new standard for electrification’ – it’s not just about owning a vehicle but taking advantage of all the associated benefits, for the customer and society overall.”