Nissan Motor Co. Joining Forces With NEC to Produce Batteries for Electric Cars and Hybrids

[cwerdna]

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070413/japan_nissan.html?.v=4

There's a mention of "Nissan was near bankruptcy before entering an alliance with Renault SA of France in 1999, and is forging a gradual turnaround..." That's a bit misleading. Although they're facing some bumps now, Ghosn turned the company around from near bankruptcy to record profits and get rid of their debt.

Per http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/03/...rg/sxghosn.php, in 2005, Nissan was "the most profitable of the world's five biggest automakers in terms of sales, with a 10 percent operating margin in the three months that ended in December. That compares with 9.1 percent for Toyota Motor and 0.5 percent for General Motors, according to Merrill Lynch"...

[nerfer]

I read this too, but concentrated more on this part:

Tokyo-based Nissan has started selling hybrid cars, including the Altima, but licenses the technology from Toyota. . . . Nissan has developed what it said was a superior auto battery technology with NEC, Executive Vice President Carlos Tavares said.

Nissan plans to introduce its original hybrid vehicle by 2010, and an original next-generation electric vehicle in the early part of the next decade, he said.

"Together Nissan and NEC's engineers have addressed the key challenges of cost, performance, safety and reliability. We believe that we have a breakthrough technology: the lithium-ion battery produce we will produce," Tavares said.
[/b]

Two questions:
1) Is Nissan currently using Toyota's technology or just licensing the patent rights, like Ford is supposedly doing?
2) Weren't NEC and Subaru working on battery technology together (for electric and hybrid vehicles)? Now of course Toyota bought a controlling interest in Subaru. Does this mean the NEC project was nixed around that time? It would ironic if Toyota ended up buying Li-Ion batteries from Nissan.