Nissan promised that they can come up with their first electric vehicle by 2010 and will initially service fleets for commercial use. Recently, the Japanese car maker reveals that they aim to mass produce EVs with zero emission by 2012.

During the shareholders meeting this month, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn declared the company will unveil its first EV by 2 August. The EV will go on limited sale in their Japanese and U.S. market by April of 2010. Mass production of this EV due for released to the global market will be by 2012.

The EV for mass production will make use of the Nissan plants in Smyrna, Tennessee and an undisclosed factory in Japan. The Smyrna plant can produce about 100,000 units on a yearly basis.

The Nissan executive also revealed that the pricing for their EV will be very reasonable, with the company believing that the plans will not work if consumers cannot afford their new green cars.

The Japanese car maker did not release the specifics about the electric vehicle but car industry experts assume that the package will include a 35kW/hr battery that will be leased to the consumer so prices can be trimmed down and make replacement of the battery pack easier.

The battery will supply power to the electric motor that will move the front wheels using a single gear. The car is expected to have a 367mpg-e.

The bold statement aims to hold water to distinguish the first all electric car from Nissan from the hybrid cars roaming the roads today. According to Nissan insiders, the EV will be veering away from the wedge design followed by the Honda Insight and the Toyota Prius.

It will be striking as promised. The first noticeable thing of the EV will be the absence of the grille. There is no need for one. The size of the engine will also be a lot smaller so the hood can be expected to be diving down the line of sight for better aerodynamics of the vehcle. Of course, there will also be a plug for recharging the Nissan NuVu to remind everyone that it is not just like any other vehicle on the road.

So far, the drag coefficient of the Nissan EV is at 0.30. The figure is a bit higher than the 0.28 of the Honda Insight and the 0.25 of the Toyota Prius. The design team of Nissan is still tweaking the design to improve the number, but hey, at least it’ll look better than the Honda or the Toyota, right?

The designers of the all electric Nissan vehicle were not given the free reign on how the car should look. It will still follow the platform of Nissan to keep the cost of production down to optimal.

The production of the all electric vehicle also made Nissan the first beneficiary of the $1.1B loan from the US Department of Energy. This will come from the set aside funds amounting to $25B for the development of vehicles using advanced technology.

According to Automotive News, Carlos Tavares, Nissan Motor Co.’s executive vice president for product planning and design, revealed during an event in Detriot that Nissan plans to sell the vehicles and the batteries separately. He also said that the EV model production is cheaper than the gas models in theory. The cost shoots up when you add the cost of the batteries.

While some would immediately think that it would be another stop in the purchasing process, Tavares said that it will not be an unnecessary inconvenience for the consumer and that the cost of ownership will still be the same as that of an internal combustion model, even though the batteries for the EV models are sold separately, because unlike the gas models, there is no need to replenish the pump.

The first Nissan EV model will hit U.S. and Japan in 2010. Brian Brockman, spokesperson for Nissan added that they are currently test driving the EV models on the ground and building their data base about them to be used as a basis for the production of new models.

The Nissan EV models will hit the market in 2010. The first cars will probably be based on the Nissan Mixim concept — a car I liked a lot!