UPDATE:Nissan CEO: Focuses On Electric Car For Mass Market
Wednesday June 25th, 2008 / 9h22
(Adds background, more comments by CEO.) YOKOHAMA, Japan -(Dow Jones)- Nissan Motor Co. (7201.TO) Chief Executive and President Carlos Ghosn said Wednesday the company will focus on electric cars as a core "green car" product for the mass market, even as major rivals step up offerings of hybrid cars. Nissan, Japan's third-biggest car maker by sales volume, will offer new electric cars by 2010 in the U.S. and Japan, and globally in 2012, in an effort to meet demand for such zero-emission cars amid growing concerns over exhaust emissions and soaring gasoline prices. "We really want to be the first (to offer electric cars) in the mass market," Ghosn said at a press conference after the company's annual general shareholders meeting. Two of its competitors in the domestic market, Mitsubishi Motors Corp. (7211.TO) and Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. (7270.TO), which makes Subaru brand cars, also plan on introducing such cars next year. Meanwhile, bigger Japanese car makers such as Toyota Motor Corp., (7203.TO) Japan's biggest car maker, and Honda Motor Co., (7267.TO), Japan's No. 2 car maker, are pushing ahead with more advanced hybrid cars, rather than electric models. Even so, Ghosn believes electric cars will win consumers over because they are "zero-emissions. The others are not," referring to hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars. "We believe zero-emission is part of what the global market is looking for and (is) ready to pay for," he said. But the CEO also emphasized the company will keep working on developing hybrids, fuel-cell cars and other green technologies to provide a wide range of environmentally friendly vehicles. In an indication of the auto maker's commitment, Ghosn said that he hopes to sell 1 million of electric cars a year globally. This would represent about 10% of the total demand of 10 million of such cars worldwide, that Ghosn has previously cited. He didn't say by what date he hoped to sell the 1 million cars. With respect to pricing, car makers in Japan are probably hoping to raise prices by 2%-3% to help absorb higher raw materials costs, Ghosn said. Japan is the only major market where Nissan hasn't lifted prices recently to reflect higher prices for steel and other raw materials. It has already done so in the U.S. and Europe, he said. Ghosn stopped short of saying whether his company would raise prices in its home market, saying only that it would be hard to do so unless the biggest player in the market makes the first move. As for the outlook for the U.S., auto demand there may drop well below 15 million vehicles this year from 16.1 million last year, in view of the steep drops in May and so far in June. But Ghosn did not seem overly worried about the prospects for the U.S. market, as sales of relatively fuel-efficient passenger cars are growing while those for gas-guzzling pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles are tumbling. Earlier this month, Nissan said it will boost production of its Altima sedan in the U.S. and cut that of its sport-utility vehicles as consumers clamor for the fuel-efficient vehicles amid $4-a-gallon gasoline. -By Yoshio Takahashi, Dow Jones Newswires; 813-5255-2929; yoshio.takahashi@dowjones.com
