Prime time for batteries
11EVSD0525_01
05/25/2011
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Forecasts vary on how many, and when, electrified vehicles will hit the streets, but auto and battery makers are ramping up efforts like there's no tomorrow.
Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn has taken a strong and bold position on the future of electric vehicles. He and other stakeholders in the company can only hope that battery expert Menahem Anderman is terribly wrong in projecting a much less electrifying future.
Earlier this year at the Advanced Automotive Batteries Conference (which his consulting company, Advanced Automotive Batteries, administers every year), Anderman forecasted a global EV market of about 150,000 total vehicles in 2020. For Renault and Nissan, his forecast is 45,000 EV sales in 2020, a figure that he said is 10 times less than what Ghosn projects.