Nissan Takes On the Future
Fuel cell development is generating a lot of buzz in the automobile market. This technology involves generation of electricity by hydrogen and oxygen, with water as the only emission. Fuel cell technology could be a major breakthrough in the field of electric and hybrid vehicles.
Nissan has collaborated with automobile giants like Ford and Daimler for the development of fuel cell technology. The three bigwigs of the automobile world have joined hands to come up with a technology that is both affordable and reliable by 2017.
All the three companies with put in equal amounts of money; however the exact amount has not been disclosed. Nissan CEO, Carlos Ghosn hinted during a press conference that the investment by each company will be around $735.8 million. He only mentioned that the automakers will hire engineers from all over the world to work on the development of this technology.
The news of this collaboration comes shortly after Nissan’s announcement of a restructure in its policies and technology. The project is titled Nissan Revival and this union seems to be a big step in the company’s new policy.
Daimler’s executive, Thomas Weber, revealed during a press conference in Nabern, Germany that the carmakers are hoping to develop over 100,000 vehicles powered by fuel cell technology. Weber said, “This technology has the biggest potential for emission- free driving” compared with other alternative powertrain. This cooperation gives us the opportunity to bind together the know-how of three experienced partners” to enable commercial production of cars running on the powering system”.
The fuel cell technology would be step ahead of the hybrid technologies that are used by Nissan and Daimler. Nissan’s Leaf and Daimler’s Smart are the EVs that are currently the most eco-friendly vehicles in the market. But now it seems like they are taking it a step further and removing pollution completely from the environment.
In today’s automobile market, tie-ups are becoming extremely popular. This reduces development costs for each company and speeds up the development process considerably. This reduces investment and increases sales to a large extent. Thus, it is a win-win scenario for everyone.
Ford Motors is based in the US, Daimler takes up in Germany and Nissan has its base in Japan. Thus, this new collaboration unifies most of the world. Development work will take place in all these locations, thus making this a global tie-up with an international impact.
Mitsuhiko Yamashita, a Nissan executive, stated “Fuel cell electric vehicles are the obvious next step to complement today’s battery electric vehicles as our industry embraces more sustainable transportation.”
Daimler executive, Thomas Weber, said “We are convinced that fuel cell vehicles will play a central role for zero-emission mobility in the future.”
Ford executive, Raj Nair, said, “Working together will significantly help speed this technology to market at a more affordable cost to our customers. We will all benefit from this relationship as the resulting solution will be better than any one company working alone.”
All three executives are geared up for the collaboration, only 2017 will tell what results it yields.
