Interview Written by Angela Pisanu
A chat about Nissan’s electric ambitions As well as making electric vehicles, Nissan is looking beyond manufacturing to take on all aspects of EV ownership, including charging, energy storage, and ways EV owners can make money from their vehicles. Angela Pisanu catches up with Nissan’s EV manager Karl Anders and fleet director Iker Lazzari The recent Nissan Futures event in Norway laid out the company’s electric aims, which not only include the range-improved Leaf and e-NV200 van, but an involvement in all aspects of EV ownership. This includes public, home and work charging, and innovative ways EV owners can help smooth out The second-generation Leaf offers an improved range of up to 235 miles thanks to a larger‑capacity 40kWh battery
24
peaks and lows of the demand on the grid. Explaining the company’s holistic approach, Nissan’s EV manager, Karl Anders told GreenFleet: “We are a car company but in the last few months I have learnt about voltage management, grid response and demand, and how the market works.
We have to take into consideration the big picture because we don’t want EVs to be a barrier or a drain on the grid.” The grid There has been a lot of noise about how the national grid would be able to cope if everyone charged their vehicles during peak times, mainly in the early evening when people return from work. Nissan’s bi-directional charging, or vehicle‑to-grid (V2G) charging, can mitigate this problem. It allows users to draw energy from the grid to charge their cars at different times, such as at night when demand is low and cost is cheap, and give energy back to the grid at peak times when it needs a boost. Nissan’s energy storage system xStorage, which was developed with Eaton, can also store energy when it’s at its cheapest, or store surplus energy from the house’s renewables. It then controls how and when that energy is put to use – whether it powers the house or goes back to the grid, saving the household money and helping to stabilise the national energy system. What’s more, xStorage is made from a second-hand vehicle battery, giving