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Renault-Nissan signs Singapore e-car deal

And tells UK govt to get serious about EVs - or else...

Leccy Tech Hard on the heels of Renault's unveiling of its latest EV prototype, the Renault-Nissan Alliance has announced yet another leccy car infrastructure development project, this time in Singapore.

The latest partnership is between Renault-Nissan and the Energy Market Authority, the Land Transport Authority and the Economic Development Board of Singapore and will explore the development of a zero-emission vehicles programme.

At the signing of the deal, Lawrence Wong, Chief Executive of EMA, said: "EV development is particularly relevant to the Singapore context. Singapore is well-positioned for the deployment of EVs due to our relative small size, urban environment, robust electrical grid and IT infrastructure.”

That brings to 26 the number of national governments, city and regional authorities and other organisations that Renault-Nissan have deals of one sort or another with.

At the moment the list includes – take a deep breath, it's on the long side – the Kanagawa Prefecture and city of Yokohama in Japan, Israel, Denmark, Portugal, Monaco, the UK, France, Switzerland, Ireland, China and Hong Kong. In the United States projects have been agreed with the States of Tennessee and Oregon, Sonoma County and San Diego in California, Tucson and Phoenix in Arizona, Seattle in Washington and Raleigh in North Carolina.

In Blighty, meanwhile, Nissan seems to be turning up the wick on the Government with Nissan UK VP Jerry Hardcastle speaking at the launch of a report which he helped author. The report suggests that 330,000 of 384,000 direct automotive jobs could go abroad unless Britain “takes the lead in low-carbon technology”.

Hardcastle said: "Today is not the day for Nissan to announce its electric vehicle programme, but it is clearly one of our considerations for the future to produce electric vehicles in Europe... making the UK competitive, giving an advantage or some reason to make that decision in favour of the UK is important. But at this time, that decision has yet to be made."

The general tenor of the report by the New Automotive Innovation and Growth Team is that more governmental help is needed to ensure the UK has a future as a maker of electric cars. It says a major problem is "government ambivalence towards the automotive sector and the absence of a consistent long term strategic policy framework”.

You can read the 112 page report in full here (PDF). ®

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