Nissan Unveils New Electric Car

Nissan Motor Co. Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn said Sunday he is not worried that the company's new electric vehicle will face stiff competition from hybrid cars offered by rival companies.
Japan's third-biggest car maker by sales volume will roll out the zero-emission car when its rivals are also increasing efforts to offer environmentally friendly cars, as emission regulations are becoming stricter and oil prices are also rallying back.
Nissan's domestic competitors, Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co., earlier this year released their latest hybrid cars: Toyota's remodeled Prius and Honda's redesigned Insight. Nissan plans to offer Nissan Leaf at an affordable price, which it has yet to disclose. Its low-price electric car could compete with the Prius, the Insight or other hybrid cars. But Mr. Ghosn said that is unlikely to happen, maintaining that because electric cars emit no carbon dioxide, they are separate and distinct from hybrid cars and conventional vehicles, which both produce emissions.
"EV is nonsmoking," he said at a meeting with the media after the opening ceremony, calling conventional engines and hybrid cars "smokers" and "low-smokers." He added that hybrid vehicles are competitors to automobiles with conventional engines.
Even as Nissan focuses on electric cars, it also continues to develop and improve internal-combustion-engine technologies to use in hybrid cars and diesel-engine vehicles, Mr. Ghosn said.