"The natural disasters that hit Japan earlier this year are starting to take its toll on Nissan. As a result, production plans at Nissan’s Smyrna plant, may not go as planned next year.
According to Nissan’s vice president of zero-emission vehicles, Hideaki Watanabe, the near-complete battery plant in Smyrna might not begin producing the lithium-ion batteries used to power the Nissan LEAF by September of 2012 as was originally planned.
Bloomberg reported that Carlos Ghosn predicts that Nissan will deliver 1,500 LEAF vehicles to U.S. customers in June, which would be the most deliveries of any month so far.
Nissan expects the plant to be completed by the end of the summer and estimates about 200,000 batteries will be made there each year.
Despite Watanabe’s statements, Steve Parrett, manager of corporate communications for Nissan North America, said Nissan is still planning to do everything in its power to stay on schedule.
“Nissan continues to target an end of 2012 start of production for the Nissan Leaf and the lithium-ion batteries that power it in Tennessee,” Parrett said. “The earthquake in Japan has impacted our operations worldwide and because of this we still are assessing whether it will impact the start of production for the Leaf at Smyrna.”
The battery plant, which measures at 1.3-million-square-feet, will be the biggest plant of its kind in the United States. The establishment of this plant will create approximately 1,300 jobs and mark h beginning of a new aspect of Nissan’s relationship with Smyrna."
Em: http://nissan-leaf.net/2011/06/20/nissa ... e-delayed/
