Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. will start making drive motors for its all-electric Leaf hatchback at its Decherd, TN, engine plant in early 2013, not long after the automaker begins assembling the North American version of the EV and its lithium-ion battery packs at the sprawling Nissan manufacturing campus in Smyrna, about 75 miles away. The automaker's 1.2-million-
Nissan also said construction of the Leaf assembly and battery production facilities at the 3,350-employee Smyrna campus is back on track for late 2012 production. Hideaki Watanabe, corporate vice president for Nissan’s Global Zero-Emission Vehicle Business Unit, said last month that EV production at Smyrna could be delayed past the $1.6-million facility’s planned December, 2012 launch date because of disruptions arising from the earthquake that devastated Japan earlier this year. But in a recent interview in the trade journal Automotive News, Nissan Americas vice chairman and manufacturing and supply chain chief Bill Krueger said that despite a long delay in training plant personnel who'd been sent to Japan – the only active Leaf plant, near Yokohama, was shuttered for a month to assess and repair quake damage – the U.S. team is "still targeting to launch on time, we have just shy of a year-and-a-half to make up for the lost time."
Commenting this week on the decision to build Leaf motors in Tennessee, Krueger said the Decherd plant would “play a vital role in making zero-emission mobility a reality for American consumers.” Nissan last month had by far its best-ever sales month for the Leaf, selling 1,708 of the EVs, up 50 percent from May. The all-electric hatchback – which currently is being sold only in a seven “early adopter” states – trailed only the Toyota Prius hybrid-electric vehicle among advanced-powertrain vehicles sold in the U.S. in June. Nissan is opening sales in nine more states next week and will add a dozen more by year's end. The company intends to be selling the Leaf in all 50 states by 2013.
