A STRUGGLE TO MEET DEMAND FOR ELECTRIC CARS

NISSAN CHIEF PREDICTS A STRUGGLE TO MEET DEMAND FOR ELECTRIC CARS

Carmakers will be scrambling to meet demand for electric cars – and the lithium batteries that power them – within the next two years, Carlos Ghosn, chief executive of Renault and Nissan, has predicted.

Mr Ghosn said at the Geneva motor show yesterday that Renault and Nissan stood to profit because they would be “the only one on the market” with an electric car by 2011.

“If I had to make a bet today, I would say we're going to be very quickly in short capacity for electric cars,” Mr Ghosn said. “From everything I'm seeing, in 2011 or 2012 we're going to have to rush to build capacity for both batteries and cars.”

Renault and Nissan are between them installing enough capacity to build about 150,000 such cars in Japan, 200,000 in Europe, and more than 200,000 in the US. “We're putting the system in place – who else is doing that?” Mr Ghosn said.

The allied French and Japanese carmakers are pushing more aggressively than other big car producers into pure battery electric vehicles, despite a widespread view among their competitors and industry analysts that they will be little more than a niche product.

While Renault and Nissan say they will be the first to market electric cars in 2011, PSA Peugeot Citroën plans to launch two electric cars in Europe this year, and Mitsubishi's i-MiEV is already on the road in Japan.

雷诺-日产(Renault-Nissan)首席执行官卡洛斯•戈恩(Carlos Ghosn)预计，未来两年内，汽车制造商们将难以满足市场对电动汽车（以及为其提供动力的锂电池）的需求。

戈恩昨日在日内瓦车展上表示，雷诺和日产有望从中获益，因为到2011年时，它们将是“市场中唯一”能够提供电动汽车的厂商。

他表示：“如果我今天必须打个赌，我会说，我们会很快面对电动汽车产能不足的局面。我所看到的一切均表明，在2011年或2012年，我们将不得不拼命扩建电池和汽车的产能。”

雷诺和日产正在携手建立足够的产能，以便在日本生产约15万辆、在欧洲生产20万辆、在美国生产20多万辆电动汽车。戈恩称：“我们正在搭建生产体系，还有谁在这样做呢？”

两家结盟的法国、日本汽车制造商，正以比其它大型汽车制造商更为积极的态度进军纯电池驱动电动汽车领域，尽管其竞争对手和行业分析师普遍认为，此类汽车不过是一种利基产品。

虽然雷诺和日产表示，它们将于2011年率先在市场上推出电动汽车，但标致雪铁龙(PSA Peugeot Citroën)计划今年就在欧洲推出两款电动汽车，而三菱(Mitsubishi)的i-MiEV已经行驶在日本的公路上。

译者/汪洋