Nissan Invests €100 Million in Spain

 

Nissan, Japan’s 2nd biggest carmaker, said it’s investing €100 million euros at a plant in Barcelona making electric vehicles, creating 700 jobs.

Production of the e-NV200 model starts next year and becomes the second fully electric vehicle produced at the plant, according to an e-mailed statement today from Nissan. Nissan also produces the Leaf electric car and aims to be the biggest producer of light commercial vehicles by 2016.

“The new model will offer all the spaciousness, versatility and practicality of a traditionally powered compact van, but with zero CO2 emissions,” Andy Palmer, executive vice president for Nissan, said in the statement today.

The new model is based on the existing NV200 van in production, which has sold about 100,000 units. The jobs will be both at the Nissan plant and with local suppliers.

Plug-in hybrids and all-electric vehicles have the potential to make up 9% of auto sales in 2020, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. That could rise to 22% of sales by 2030, or 4 million vehicles.