Renault electric car concepts

Renault-Nissan Alliance aims to lead world in mass market electric cars

Renault and its alliance partner Nissan are investing 200 million euros a year in a bid to carve out a major share of the global electric car market with their range of electric vehicles for launch in 2011/2012.

Renault’s Chief Operating Officer, Patrick Pelata, said in December 2009 that Renault expected that electric vehicles would represent 10% of the total world market by 2020. The proportion would be much higher in Europe due to government subsidies such as the scheme announced in the UK which will see buyers of electric cars receive payments of between £2000 and £5000 from the government. UK owners of electric cars, with zero emissions of carbon dioxide, will also pay no Vehicle Excise Duty and will be exempt from the London Congestion Charge. Renault’s projection for electric car sales in Europe is 15% to 25% of annual car sales by 2020.

Two million electric cars on French roads by 2020?

The French Ecology and Energy Minister Jean-Lois Borloo is aiming to have 2 million electric cars on French roads by 2020. Renault will have invested 4 billion euros by 2015 in its bid to maximise its share of this market.
Renault will install capacity for 100,000 electric vehicles a year at its Flins plant in northern France to build its electric city car based on the Zoe ZE Concept revealed at the 2009 Frankfurt Motor Show. The car is scheduled for launch in mid 2012 and if sales warrant it, capacity can be raised to 300,000 a year.

The Zoe ZE is one of the four Renault electric vehicles first shown in concept form at Frankfurt but which, Renault announced, are very close to the actual models which will go into production. Observers were surprised not only at the size of the car range but also the depth of the Alliance’s financial commitment to electric vehicles. Renault confirmed how close its electric cars are to fruition when it invited journalists to drive the cars at the Renault Technocentre in November 2009.

Renault’s range of electric car concepts

Kangoo ZE Concept is a light commercial vehicle to be launched early in 2011. The range is 100 miles and maximum speed 80 mph. It has a 70kW electric motor which develops 226 Nm of torque in conjunction with a lithium-ion battery. It provides a ‘foretaste of the future for urban-based transport and delivery’.

Twizy ZE Concept is an urban runabout to be introduced in second-half 2012. Range is around 100 miles. Its configuration combines the advantages of both two- and four-wheel vehicles, says Renault. The ultra-compact Twizy (2.3m in length and 1.13m wide with a footprint barely larger than a scooter) accommodates a driver and one passenger directly behind him. The wheel fairings are octagonal rather than spherical, giving the impression that the vehicle is ‘gliding silently along the road’. It is powered by a 15kW (20hp) motor developing 70Nm of torque, giving acceleration similar to a 125cc motor bike.

Zoe ZE Concept is a five-seater compact city car which goes into production in mid 2012 with a range of 100 miles and a top speed of 87 mph. It is aimed at motorists who own more than one car and who are looking for a compact, versatile vehicle for day-to-day needs such as the school or work run, or shopping trips. It is powered by a 70kW electric motor which develops 226 Nm of torque.

Fluence ZE Concept is a family car for launch, first in Israel, in early 2011 with a range of 100 miles. It is aimed at motorists who are looking for roominess and style. It is powered by an electric motor located near to the front axle, in conjunction with a lithium-ion battery.

Thierry Koskas, head of Renault’s electric vehicle project, has described the expanded role of Renault/Nissan dealerships. Currently the customer buys the car and drives home. In the future, the customer will buy an electric car, sign a contract to rent a battery and sign another contract with an energy supplier to use recharge stations located in the street, near the workplace and in parking areas.

There will be potentially three ways to recharge Renault’s electric cars. Firstly at home, overnight, taking from four to eight hours. Secondly, by taking your car to a rapid recharge station where recharges could take 20 to 30 minutes. Thirdly, an option unique (so far) to Renault, by taking your car to a battery exchange terminal where a machine will remove the depleted battery and insert a fully charged replacement in three minutes. This last alternative, called ‘quick drop’ is being developed with Nissan but Renault thinks that other manufacturers will almost certainly follow suit. The problem is one of compatibility: different manufacturers have different sized batteries so one machine could not currently fit all.  

Better Place

Better Place is a California-based company which is currently developing grid infrastructures on the ‘quick drop’ battery exchange principle. The first locations where these terminals are being developed on a national scale are Israel and Denmark. The Alliance is in partnership with Better Place to supply electric cars starting in 2011 and planned to reach 100,000 by 2016.

Joint venture to produce batteries

The Renault-Nissan Alliance has also established a joint venture with the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) and the French Strategic Investment Fund (FSI) to develop and manufacture batteries for electric vehicles. The plan is to produce 100,000 batteries a year from mid 2012 at Renault’s Flins plant in France. The investment value of the first phase of the project is estimated at 600 million Euros.

Scenic ZEV H2 Prototype

The Alliance has also developed an electric fuel-cell car that produces electricity on board and requires no exterior electric recharge. The electricity is produced by a fuel cell powered by a fuel source, hydrogen, stored in a tank. The hydrogen is combined with atmospheric oxygen through a polymer membrane. The two gases combine to produce water, the only emission of the Scenic ZEV H2, and give off electric energy which powers the vehicle motor. Nissan developed the fuel cell and the hydrogen tank; Renault adapted the architecture of the Grand Scenic without compromising the interior space.
The fuel cell car is a longer term project which will only become a viable proposition when a hydrogen infrastructure is in place and when fuel cells can compete in price with other forms of vehicle propulsion.

Renault-Nissan Alliance Partnerships

The Renault-Nissan Alliance has built 30 worldwide partnerships with countries such as the UK and Portugal and local authorities in the Japan and the USA. They have three functions:

The development of a comprehensive charging infrastructure through public and private investment
•    The development of incentives and subsidies from local, regional, and national governments
•    Public education on the individual and societal benefits of zero-emissions mobility.

It may very well be that the Nissan Leaf and other Alliance electric cars are distributed to selected fleets in 2010 / 2011with whom Nissan has built partnerships, ahead of a more comprehensive launch in 2012. And it may also be the case that the Leaf and others will be initially sold in those markets and cities where an incipient infrastructure is in place. 

Is Mr Ghosn right?

Carlos Ghosn, CEO of the Renault-Nissan Alliance has committed his company firmly to an all- electric product future. But Toyota takes a very different view. It has gone on record as saying that ‘the conventional petrol-hybrid, like the all-new third-generation Prius PHEV, is considered Toyota’s long-term core powertrain technology.’ The only roles Toyota foresees for pure electric cars are as small city cars and as commercial vehicles. Both suit daily driving routines that are predictable and limited in their range. Hence Toyota is progressing with its small, low-powered, all-electric city concept car that it showed at the Detroit Auto Show in January 2010.

Renault versus Toyota

Toyota also doesn’t see any short-term break-throughs in battery technology – certainly not on the scale necessary to power mass-manufactured family-sized cars, and the obstacles to reducing the size and weight of today’s lithium-ion batteries appear insurmountable.
The company is similarly doubtful about the massive financial investment necessary to create a viable infrastructure. Quick charging points, they say, will cost in the region of £30,000 each and no-one has yet come up with an answer to the questions as to how to you provide sufficient charging points to service people who have to park in the street or who live in blocks of high-rise flats.

An electric future

The segment of the car market that shows the most growth potential over the coming decade is that powered by electricity – whether it’s all-electric, plug-in electric hybrid or, in the longer term, electric fuel cell. There is a role for all three, a role that will grow as the consumer becomes more familiar with electricity as a motive power. Initially, however, there will be one key feature of all-electric cars that will be the most significant determinant of consumer choice and that is vehicle range, and the ‘range anxiety’ that it generates. Renault’s range of all-electric cars each have a range of around 160 km – 100 miles – and that doesn’t leave much margin for error when the infrastructure to provide the power for electric cars is still very much in its infancy.
Younger customers probably represent the sector of the market most concerned about green issues and least influenced by their cars’ fuel range. But electric cars have a high purchase price and the young may also be the sector most likely to be influenced by that.

Toyota’s strategy is probably the safer bet in the immediate future, but the Renault-Nissan alliance will produce the cars that will come into their own as we progress further into the second decade of the century and an electric charging infrastructure develops.