We've come a long way in the world of EVs since the first Nissan Leaf came out in 2010.
The Leaf did it's job at the time, providing an affordable EV option when there weren't many EVs on the market. In fact, up until 2018, the Leaf was the best selling EV ever.
And now, Nissan has announced it will be investing a huge $17.6 billion, as part of a plan towards 2030 that aims to see a 40% increase in its EV sales in the U.S. and China. Nissan hopes to see even higher increases in Japan (55% is the goal here) and Europe (with the aim of a whopping 70% increase) over the next 9 years.
To achieve these ambitious goals, Nissan plans to release 20 new hybrid and electric cars within the decade, 15 of which will be fully electric.
Now these won't all be mass market models, as they'll reportedly be shared across the Nissan and Infiniti lines, but that's still quite a lot of cars! Nissan also promises that at least some of them will be reasonably priced.
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The announcement also talks about Nissan's plan to introduce cheaper, cobalt-free (although still lithium-ion) batteries by 2028, which it says will slash battery costs by 65%, to what it's projected as $75 per kWh.
The plan includes hiring 3,000 advanced research and development staff worldwide and going big on battery production capacity.
