Nissan Motor Co., seeking to be the world’s biggest producer of electric vehicles, said lithium-ion battery packs on its rechargeable Leaf hatchback will have an eight-year warranty.
Customer concerns that electric cars may not be as reliable as gasoline-engine autos led the Yokohama, Japan-based company to set the warranty at eight years or 100,000 miles on the first-generation Leaf powertrain, Carlos Tavares, Nissan’s executive vice president and head of operations in the Americas, said today at a conference in San Jose, California.
“We have a warranty that is matching market standards,” Tavares said in an interview. “We checked that those were matching the customers’ expectations through market research.”
Nissan, Japan’s third-largest automaker, plans to sell as many as 25,000 units of the $32,780 Leaf in the U.S. during the model’s first year, following its introduction late this year. Chief Executive Officer Carlos Ghosn has set a goal of expanding battery and electric vehicle production to as many as 500,000 vehicles by the end of 2012.
The durability of lithium-ion batteries hasn’t been proven yet as vehicles that use them are just beginning to come to market this year.
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