Nissan starts construction at Portuguese lithium-ion battery plant

On February 11, 2011, Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. started construction of a lithium-ion battery plant in Cacia, Portugal. The plant will provide batteries for the Renault-Nissan European market electric vehicle.

The battery plant covers an area of ​​30,450 square meters, and the site is a Renault Cacia transmission assembly plant with a total investment of approximately 156 million euros. The new plant is expected to be operational by December 2012, with a designed capacity of 50,000 units/year and a new position of approximately 200 people.

Nissan Motor Coo Toshiyuki Shiga stated that the Cacia battery production plant will become one of the three largest Renault-Nissan Alliance electric vehicle battery plants in Europe and will first provide lithium ion batteries for Nissan Leaf wind electric vehicles.

The other two battery factories are in Sunderland, UK and Flins, France. The former was started by Nissan in April 2010 with a design capacity of 60,000 units/year and is expected to be put into operation in early 2012. The latter is responsible for the establishment of Reynolds, with a design capacity of 100,000 units/year.