Green Options

Editor’s Note: This is part four of an exclusive sit down I had with Hideaki Watanabe, Nissan’s Division Manager of their Global Zero Emission Business Unit, at last week’s U.S. debut of the LEAF in Los Angeles. Part one is devoted to battery swapping, part two to battery leasing, and part three to the quietness and safety of EVs.

During the Frankfurt Motor Show in September, Renault invited Gas 2.0’s own UK-based Chris Milton to an exclusive event detailing the company’s electric car strategy. The event introduced some rather quirky (and quirkily named) electric cars, including the Twizy, the Kangoo, and the Zoe. These aren’t just concept cars, they are cars that Renault intends to build and sell—some by next year.

Based on those releases—and the fact that Nissan hasn’t invested anything in battery swapping while Renault has jumped in head first—it started to seem that the Renault-Nissan Alliance was taking two completely different paths on the road to EV world domination. On the one hand you have Nissan with the rather mainstream-looking LEAF and plans for a luxury Infiniti electric car. And on the other you have… the Twizy.

In my recent sit down with Hideaki Watanabe, Nissan’s Division Manager of their Global Zero Emission Business Unit, I asked him to explain why Nissan and Renault were apparently moving in opposite directions.

Editor’s Note: This is part three of an exclusive sit down I had with Hideaki Watanabe, Nissan’s Division Manager of their Global Zero Emission Business Unit, at last week’s U.S. debut of the LEAF in Los Angeles. Part one is devoted to battery swapping, part two to battery leasing, and part four to the different zero emissions directions of Renault and Nissan within their alliance.

Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn made it a point to highlight how quiet the upcoming Nissan LEAF electric car will be during an event in Los Angeles last week to mark the car’s U.S. debut. “LEAF has no engine, no tailpipe, no fuel tanks,” he remarked. “As a result LEAF has zero carbon emissions, zero particle [emissions] and zero noise. It’s quiet and clean.”

The gathering crowd of electric car makers has been drumming this “quiet mantra” since day one, and, indeed, it is certainly a great selling point. But recently the quietness of EVs has come under scrutiny as a potential safety hazard to the blind, the elderly, and children; if you can’t hear the car, it’s one less warning you have of an impending accident.

Editor’s Note: This is part two of an exclusive sit down I had with Hideaki Watanabe, Nissan’s Division Manager of their Global Zero Emission Business Unit, at last week’s U.S. debut of the LEAF in Los Angeles. Part one is devoted to battery swapping, part three to the quietness and safety of EVs, and part four to the different zero emissions directions of Renault and Nissan within their alliance.

As the Nissan LEAF nears its release to the consumer market, the topic of whether or not the battery will be leased or purchased with the car has come to the forefront. In many ways, Nissan has had an on-again, off-again relationship with the topic—leading to confusion among the media and potential customers about what, exactly, Nissan is planning.

In truth, Nissan hasn’t done the best job of presenting a clear picture of the topic. So I was surprised when, at last week’s U.S. LEAF unveiling, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn made the most definitive statement I’d heard on the subject to date: “The battery will not be sold, it will be leased, and the lease will be calculated in such a way that for the average U.S. citizen—which today drives between twelve thousand and fifteen thousand miles per year—the cost of the lease of the battery plus the cost of electricity is lower than the cost of gasoline.”

As expected, many in the media latched on to this statement as the final say on whether or not the LEAF battery will be leased, but based on Nissan’s past experience with this topic, I had a hunch that wasn’t really the full story. So I asked Hideaki Watanabe, Nissan’s Division Manager of their Global Zero Emission Business Unit, to elaborate.

A major new survey has revealed that nearly 50% of all US consumers would consider buying a ‘green’ cell phone, but only if key factors such as the price, features, and performance were equivalent to other phones.

According to the poll of 1,000 American adults carried out by ABI Research, just 7% would be willing to pay a premium to go green, a figure that may cause cell phone companies to think deeply before investing heavily in environmentally friendlier models.

Speaking about the findings, industry analyst Michael Morgan said, “These survey results mean that almost half of those surveyed were at least committed in principle to use of a green handset. However the public is largely uninformed about their availability: only 4% said they were ‘very familiar’ with green handsets.”

A new U.S. organics education and marketing campaign is aimed at families with young children.  The Organic Agriculture and Products Education Institute (Organic Institute) has launched ‘Organic. It’s worth it’, its first national consumer campaign.

“The mission of this campaign is to answer consumer questions about organic with the clear message that organic is worth it in every way from health care and economics to farming and the environment. It will increase consumer trust, knowledge and purchase of organic products,” says Christine Bushway, president of the Organic Institute and executive director of the Organic Trade Association (OTA), the campaign sponsor.