Nissan to Build 250,000 Leafs a Year

That should be enough to meet customer demand... At least, this is what Nissan's top executives believed when they took the decision to start production of the company's first EV in Europe as well, forecasting an output of 250,000 units a year. This way, Nissan would be able to satisfy the growing demand in Asia, North America and Europe, a firm's executive was quoted as saying by Automotive News Europe.

Nissan will thus begin production in Tennessee, US in late 2012, but also in Europe, at the plant it currently operates in Sunderland, England. The first unit is project to be rolled off the assembly lines in Great Britain in early 2013.

“As of early 2013, we expect to satisfy European demand with European supply and U.S. demand with U.S. supply,” Pierre Loing, Nissan Europe's vice president in charge of product planning and strategy, said in a statement.

Nissan last week announced that it is opening a new battery plant in Portugal that will create 200 jobs and will have a total capacity of 50,000 units a year. It will start operations in December 2012 and will have a significant contribution to the Renault-Nissan alliance goal of building 500,000 EVs and batteries per year by 2015.

“The Cacia plant will be one of three facilities in Europe supplying batteries to electric vehicles produced by the Alliance, starting with the 100% electric Nissan LEAF. Together, the three plants will enable the Alliance to rollout electric vehicles in Europe on an unprecedented scale, bringing the world one step closer to a zero-emission future,” said Nissan’s Chief Operating Officer Toshiyuki Shiga, speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony.