TOKYO, May 23 (Kyodo) — Nissan Motor Co. said Wednesday it will manufacture electric vehicles based on its NV200 commercial vehicle at a plant in Barcelona, Spain from the business year starting April 2013.
The Japanese automaker will invest 100 million euros (around 10 billion yen) to produce the new EVs, which it plans to begin selling in 2014, it said.
The NV200-based EV is intended to deliver a driving range similar to the Leaf EV on a single charge, it said.
Nissan chose the Barcelona plant to produce the NV200-based EV as the gasoline engine version of the NV200 is produced there for export to other European countries. The new EV's lithium-ion batteries will be produced in Britain, it said.
The Spain plant will be Nissan's only production site for the NV200-based EV.
The automaker currently manufactures the Leaf only in Japan, but plans to start producing it in the United States in the latter half of 2012 and in Britain from 2013.
