Renault-Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn has revealed his firms are developing affordable electric vehicles, specifically with the Chinese market in mind.
Renault is working with local Chinese joint-venture partner Dongfeng in the development of affordable EV technology as it's determined that expensive electric cars aren't selling well in China, prompting its interest in creating more accessible battery-powered vehicles.
“The Nissan Leaf is sold in China. It is a very nice car however, it is selling a few hundred per month. We envision much bigger [sales] than that. We know that the price is a handicap; people are buying very cheap electric cars,” Ghosn said, according to Autocar.
“Obviously, however, with very low performance you can manage that. So the question is, what is the best compromise between an acceptable performance and the lowest price possible? This is something that doesn’t exist today and we're willing to find a solution. I bet there is going to be tons of development work on very affordable electric cars.”
As with most technologies, the price of producing electric vehicles will continue to decrease as production costs fall and demand increases. With that in mind, the Chinese government plans on having 5 million electric and hybrid cars on its roads by 2020.