Nissan plans to invest more than 100 billion yuan in the next five years to push solid-state battery "scooter"

Nissan, which has always had a fondness for e-POWER technology, has finally taken a crucial step on the road to pure electric transformation. Nissan unveiled "Nissan Vision 2030" (Nissan Ambition 2030 at its headquarters on November 29th, with plans to invest 2 trillion yen (112.8 billion yuan) over the next five years to accelerate the layout of electrically driven products and technological innovation.

In this huge investment plan, Nissan plans to launch 23 electric-driven models by fiscal year 2030 (April 2030 to March 2031), including 15 all-electric models, with Nissan and Infiniti brands accounting for more than 50 per cent of the total. In the next five years, Nissan will launch 20 pure electric models and models with Nissan e-POWER technology. By fiscal year 2026 (April 2026 to March 2027), electric-driven models accounted for more than 75 per cent of total vehicle sales in Europe, more than 55 per cent in Nissan and more than 40 per cent in China, and in the US by fiscal year 2030, pure electric models accounted for 40 per cent of total vehicle sales.

At the present stage, in the face of the general trend of global electrification transformation, the main technical route of Nissan is the e-POWER technology of engine + motor power combination, in which the engine is only responsible for power generation, and the motor will be the main driving form. At the just-concluded 2021 Guangzhou Motor Show, Nissan's joint venture in China, Dongfeng Nissan, unveiled China's first model equipped with e-POWER technology. According to the latest news in the industry, Nissan Xiaoke e-Power version has also conducted road tests overseas, and plans to be officially released in the first half of 2022.

However, the e-POWER technology, which has sold more than 500000 vehicles in the past five years, has been criticized by top experts in the Chinese industry. In the expert's view, e-POWER is only a transitional technology, and Nissan needs to be more determined on the road of electric transformation.

The introduction of all-solid-state batteries and cobalt-free lithium-ion batteries has radicalized Nissan in the transformation of pure electric models. In Vision 2030, unveiled on November 29th, Nissan said it would introduce cobalt-free technology into the research and development of lithium-ion battery technology and expected to reduce battery costs by 65 per cent by fiscal year 2028 (April 2028 to March 2029). At the same time, electric models with original all-solid-state battery (ASSB) will be launched in fiscal year 2028, and a pilot plant is planned to be built in Yokohama, Japan in fiscal year 2024. Nissan expects the cost of all-solid-state battery packs to fall to $75 / kWh, by fiscal year 2028 and further to $65 / kWh, in the future to achieve cost parity for electric and fuel models.

This time node is earlier than BMW. According to BMW's plan, it will launch a prototype car with solid-state batteries by 2025 and a BMW production model by 2030.

Nissan's planned solid-state battery may be the first to be installed in the next generation of cross-border electric vehicles based on the vision of Nissan's EV technology. According to Nissan, the core of Nissan's EV technology vision is to integrate all-solid-state battery technology, integrate optimized components into a skateboard-like structure, and create a variety of subdivided pure electric models. This concept is similar to the "skateboard chassis" technology of Rivian, a hot American electric car start-up.

Based on the launch of more all-electric models, Nissan plans to increase its global battery capacity to 52GWH by fiscal year 2026 and to 130GWh by fiscal year 2030. At the same time, Nissan will invest 20 billion yen (1.13 billion yuan) in charging infrastructure by 2026.

In July, Nissan and Vision Power, a power battery company owned by Vision Technology Group, announced that the latter would provide power batteries for Nissan's next-generation electric vehicle platform. According to Vision Dynamics, it will build a superbattery factory in the UK, with a capacity of 25GWH by 2030 and the potential for expansion of 35GWh. In the Chinese market, Nissan has locked in a company based in Hubei as its power battery supplier, according to Nissan China insiders.