Will Nissan be the first major carmaker to offer a "real" electric car to the "real" buying public?

That's its plan: to have a proper compact car with room for four to five people and their luggage, with all the
required safety equipment and comfort and convenience amenities (not some glorified golf cart), on sale to regular
customers (not merely to private fleets or utility companies) by late 2010, if various infrastructure developments
get finished in time.

Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn has been quoted as saying that 10 per cent of worldwide car sales will be electric by 2020.

We'll see.

As a glimpse into what Nissan hopes will be the future, I was given a brief turn behind the wheel of a vehicle packaged with
what will essentially be the drive train for its upcoming production Electric Vehicle (EV).
The company also lined up presentations on the various issues electric vehicles face.

Nissan hasn't revealed what its EV will look like yet, nor what it will cost, but it does say that total cost of ownership will be
less than a comparably sized and featured car with a conventional internal combustion engine.
By "total cost of ownership" the company includes such things as reduced maintenance costs – no tuneups, no oil changes.

But the biggest chunk will be reduced fuel cost, which would offset the (presumed) added initial cost of the vehicle.

Assuming you drive 15,000 miles per year (the presenters were all American) and electricity costs 14 cents per kilowatt-hour,
Nissan says its EV would use some $600 (U.S.) worth of juice annually.

A gasoline-powered car getting an attainable 30 miles per U.S. gallon (7.8 L/100 km) would use 500 gallons to go 15,000 miles.
At $4 a U.S. gallon (as it cost last July in much of the U.S.) you'd be kicking in some $1,400 (500 times $4 minus $600)
toward the cost of the electric vehicle every year.

Now, until we know the initial price of the EV we won't know the true payback period.

Just outside the conference room where this presentation was made, gasoline was only $2 a U.S. gallon.
At that rate, the payback would take twice as long.

Further complicating calculations for us on this side of the border is that electricity in Ontario costs between 4 cents
and 8.8 cents per kWh, and gas costs around 83 cents a litre or $3.14 (Canadian) per U.S. gallon.

Nissan claims the EV would still have an advantage if gas drops to $1.10 a gallon.
That has less chance of happening than George W. Bush has of becoming president again.

So while you could surmise that the Nissan EV's initial cost will be higher, it would eventually pay for itself.
How long "eventually" is would depend on gasoline pricing.

This in contrast to the Chevrolet Volt, which (if it ever sees the light of day) is expected to cost about $40,000 (U.S.),
and which has no hope of ever paying for itself unless gasoline rises much higher.

The EV is expected to have a range of about 160 km. This is more than double the average commute for North American
urban dwellers, at whom this vehicle will be targeted.

Nissan uses the term "range anxiety" to describe perhaps the main public concern about EVs.
Yes, we usually only drive 60 km per day. But what if your Mom calls you at lunch, says her hot water tank has sprung a leak,
you have to go out there right away?

With a gasoline car (or even Chevy's Volt) there's no worry – you can always top up the tank in minutes.

Nissan projects at least three levels of charging for EVs of the future.

Most homes and offices have 220- volt systems; a hard-wired charging system could "fill" the car, at night when rates
are lowest, in about six hours.

For medium-distance use, chargers located in shopping malls or parking garages could top up the battery to about
80 per cent of maximum charge in about 20 minutes.

If you're prepared to plan your day around this sort of thing, it could work.

Third, what's called "pathway" charging could top you up at freeway service centres, again in the 20-minute range.

Further down the line is a plan to swap out entire battery packs, as you do now with your digital camera or other
electronic gear.

And what about recycling the batteries when they're tired? This is already an issue with older hybrids; what if we
have millions of battery-powered cars being scrapped every year?

Nissan concedes that automotive use – heavy loads leading to fast discharge, frequent complete recharging
– is very hard on batteries.

Eventually, the batteries would have to get recycled, which apparently is or soon will be possible.

To give us a glimpse into what they hope will be the future, Nissan packaged what will essentially be the drive train
for the upcoming production EV into a Cubic, the slightly longer version of the second-generation Cube
(the third generation of which I previewed in last week's Wheels).

Now, two laps of a pylon course in a parking lot in Michigan in spring is hardly a definitive test.

Highway driving, driving at the limits of battery charge and life, winter conditions, hot summer weather with the
air-con on max – all will place extra demands on any battery-powered car.

This vehicle was the quietest of the several electrics I have driven, with none of the whirring and clicking you usually notice.

Electric motors generate their maximum torque at zero r.p.m., so acceleration off the line is very brisk.

The car is nimble, silent as church, and rather fun to operate. There is absolutely nothing in the driving behaviour of
this vehicle that would put off Joe or Jane Downtown from owning one.

It's the infrastructure and lifestyle changes required to put large numbers of these into daily use that give me pause
– big pause.

First, the performance and range of this vehicle is predicated on a new type of "laminated" lithium-ion battery being
developed by a joint-venture company between Nissan and NEC, the Japanese electronics giant.
They claim this battery has twice the power in half the size of current batteries.

But I am always reminded of the comment made by Jim Hall, a friend of mine who worked on GM's EV-1 project.
Riffing on the old joke about statisticians, Hall said, "There are three types of liars in the world: liars, damned liars
and battery engineers."

I can see dedicated environmentalists getting behind something like an EV, and putting up with the inconveniences
involved. Or if not environmentalists, at least those who won't or can't get "off the grid" car-wise entirely, but who maybe
today use local car rental agencies like AutoShare or Zipcar.

But when you look at the type of driving Nissan expects EV owners to do, and realize that just a couple of years ago,
the typical urban commuter was probably driving a 3,000-kg V8-powered SUV, you have to wonder if there will be that
big a market for cars like the EV.

Especially in the United States, where at least for now, gasoline is nearly free, relatively speaking.

Far be it from me to try and bring some logic into this discussion, but the main point of electric vehicles is to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions, isn't it?

The contribution of the personal transportation fleet to greenhouse gas emissions in Canada is estimated by
Environment Canada to be 12 per cent. (It's 14 per cent in the U.S., but they buy bigger cars than we do.)

So if everybody bought an EV the minute they were introduced, our greenhouse gas emissions problem would
still be 88 per cent (86 in the States) as bad as it is now.

Is it really worth it?

The U.S. government in particular seems to believe that all carmakers need to do is build more fuel-efficient cars
and They Will Come.

If the Americans insist on carmakers building fuel-efficient cars but won't even consider an energy policy with a high
enough (and stable enough) gas price to actually stimulate demand for these vehicles, then the entire exercise is pointless.

If governments and industry were going to make huge investments in infrastructure, wouldn't it be wiser to do so for hydrogen,
rather than electricity? It has always seemed to me that hydrogen (powering fuel cells or in an internal combustion engine)
offers a better long-term solution to our transportation energy needs than anything else.
If we're going to sink billions into something, it might as well be into the best possible solution.

Still, battery-powered cars continue to be developed, tested and built. Obviously, a viable electric car is just around the corner,
whereas a viable hydrogen production car is at least 30 years away.

Hydrogen cars will also be run by electric motors; if nothing else, battery-powered electrics will give carmakers some
long-term, large-volume real-world experience with electric propulsion systems.

But I still can't help but think that the problem with new battery-powered cars will be the same that faced the Baker Electric
in the mid-1910s: finding a long enough extension cord.