Blog of RENAULT NISSAN Alliance

It’s the result of our partnership with the Sao Paulo municipality, which is designed to show how a fleet of electric taxis will improve the quality of life there.

Within a matter of months, they will be joined by eight more Nissan LEAF EV taxis, all running around set routes inside the Sao Paulo beltway.
 

To ensure the taxis are available around the clock, 15 EV chargers will be installed along the route by partner energy company, AES Electropaulo. Five of these will be Quick Chargers allowing the batteries to be recharged in about 30 minutes.

 

The combination of quick charging and a potential range of 175kms (NEDC) means the Nissan LEAF taxis will be able to cope with the anticipated high demand from visitors and Paulistas alike keen to discover more about electric vehicles first hand.

 

The pilot programme comes almost exactly four years ahead of Brazil’s stewardship of the Olympic Games. Nissan is the Transportation Sponsor for the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, by which time electric vehicles will be commonplace all over the globe: one of the Alliance’s targets is to have sold 1.5 million EVs globally by then.

 

The current scheme follows the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Alliance, the Municipality and other interested parties last year. The move also underlines the Alliance’s commitment to Brazil: both Nissan and Renault have recently announced significant investments in new production facilities in the country.

 

There are no two ways about it: despite the near silent running of its EVs, the Alliance is making a big noise in Brazil at the moment.