Renault Nissan to bring electric cars to Portugal

The Renault Nissan Alliance announced today that it will work with the government of Portugal to promote electric cars in the country, marking the third country to team up with the alliance on an electric vehicle project.

Renault Nissan plans to start selling the vehicles there in 2011.

The alliance hasn't announced any partners for the move into Portugal, but it previously worked with Palo Alto, Calif.-based Project Better Place, an electric car charging network startup, on deals in Israel and Denmark.

Rochelle Chimenes, a spokeswoman for Renault, told the Cleantech Group that it's too early to say who the alliance will be working with.

"Project Better Place could be involved, but the Renault Nissan Alliance has only been in touch with the Portuguese government about this electric vehicle deployment for the past two months, so we're really at the beginning of a feasibility study."

The Renault Nissan Alliance, formed in 1999 by France's Renault and Japan's Nissan Motor (Nasdaq: NSANY), is the fourth largest automotive group in the world by sales volume.

In January, Renault Nissan teamed up with Project Better Place to build a network of 500,000 charging stations across Israel and sell electric cars in the small country (see Electric cars are coming to Israel).

Then in March, Renault Nissan and Project Better Place announced their second deal, working with Denmark's DONG Energy to bring electric vehicles to the Danes (see Project Better Place goes to Denmark).

Project Better place has said it's targeting geographically small areas where it's easier to set up charging networks, but if it comes on board in Portugal, it will be a significant step up in size from Israel and Denmark.

Including the Azores and Madeira Islands, Portugal has 91,951 square kilometers of land. Israel has 20,330 square kilometers and Denmark has 42,394.

Renault Nissan will need to make a deal soon if it hopes to have a charging network up and running by the time its electric cars hit the road in 2011.

"We agree with Project Better Place when they say that you can't successfully launch the vehicles if the network isn't in place," said Chimenes.

Potential financial incentives for the project in Portugal also still need to be worked out.

Chimenes said, "Contrary to the announcements we made with Israel and Denmark, we don't have a law that makes electric vehicles exempt from taxes or that reduces the taxes, we don't have a network operator, we don't have an announcement as to who's going to supply the vehicles, who's going to supply the batteries."

In Israel, the government extended a tax incentive on the purchase of any zero-emissions vehicle until 2019. Denmark also plans to provide tax incentives on 100 percent electric vehicles.

For the Israel and Denmark projects, the cars will come from Renault, which said the electric sedan will have a range of about 60 miles in city driving and up to 100 miles for highway driving, and accelerate from zero to 60 in 13 seconds with a top speed of about 68 miles per hour. Nissan is providing the lithium-ion battery packs through its joint venture with Tokyo's NEC (Pink Sheets: NIPNF).

"The budget for the Renault Nissan Alliance, in terms of R&D in the department of electric vehicles, is €200 million per year," said Chimenes.

Chimenes said the alliance could have more announcements within the next few months.