Nissan may launch electric cars in India, calls it potential big market for EVs

Nissan may soon reveal its EV plans for India. The Japanese carmaker is currently studying the EV space in the country, and will take a call about launching its electric vehicles in coming days.

Ashwani Gupta, COO at Nissan Motor India, said that the carmaker sees India is the next big potential market for electric cars. "I can tell you that in one year, Indian EV market has grown by three times and India is going to be a big potential for the EV market," he said.

Gupta said that the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi automobile alliance is studying the feasibility of entering the segment in the country. He said that Nissan's decision to enter the Indian electric vehicle segment will depend on three aspects. “At first, the product excitement. For sure, we know that based on our experience, we will be overachieving the aspirations of Indian customer," he said. The second aspect will be competitiveness. Gupta said, "Only question is how we are going to localise the battery and this is a question which we want to study." The third, he said, "is the ecosystem which includes the infrastructure and this is where we are going to study."

Nissan, along with its Alliance partners Renault and Mitsubishi, had announced on Thursday that it would launch 35 new electric cars based on five common EV platforms by 2030. The trio will invest 23 billion dollars in the next five years to fulfil its ambitions.

One of the five common platforms announced by the trio is the CMF-BEV platform meant for fully-electric cars. This will first be used in the European markets. But, according to Gupta, "this platform may have opportunities around the world".

The first of the EVs based on this platform will be on the roads in a few weeks. It will underpin the Nissan Ariya EV crossover and Renault Megane E-Tech Electric. By 2030, more than 15 models will be based on the CMF-EV platform, with up to 1.5 million cars produced on this platform per year.