In a recent story in the New York Times and International Herald Tribune, Professor Ferdinand Dudenhöffer from the University of Duisberg-Essen made reference to a proposed BMW electric vehicle, comparing it to other automakers product plans: “I don’t know of any other manufacturer that has conceived of a car exclusively as an electric vehicle,” Mr. Dudenhöffer said. “The rest are based on conventional cars.”
Not quite.
In fact, the Nissan LEAF, the world's first mass-marketed electric vehicle, was created from the ground-up to be only an electric car. It is not based on any other Nissan product. The Nissan LEAF goes on sale in Japan, US and select markets in Europe later this year. Further, two of the concept vehicles shown by Renault at the 2009 Frankfurt Auto Show - the Twizy ZE and ZOE ZE - will lead to production vehicles that are also developed from the start to be only electric.
We love to see how interest is growing for zero emission mobility. We hope Professor Dudenhöffer would agree that regardless if EVs are adapted from existing vehicles or developed as dedicated electric-only, there is nothing 'conventional' about this potential transformation of our industry.
Source: The New York Times
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