The InEVitable sits down with two of the key people behind the transformation of Nissan.
For our can-you-believe-it 100th episode of The InEVitable, we sat down with not one, but two guys named Jonathan to discuss all the moves that Nissan is making on the road to electrification. Our hosts spoke with both Jonathan Miller, Director EV Transformation, and Jonathan Ratliff, Director Tech Planning and Research.
As you know, Nissan is no stranger to electric cars. The futuristic Ariya is the title sponsor of The InEVitable, but those with short memories will forget that Nissan was an early leader in the EV space, with its Leaf beating the Tesla Model S to market by two model years. It was not only the first mass-market EV on sale globally, but it was in fact the EV sales leader until the Tesla Model Y overtook it. While aware of its groundbreaking history, Nissan is not content to rest on its laurels.
Miller and Ratliff deliver an entertaining and wide-ranging conversation about Nissan’s plans for the InEVitable future. After discussing their respective positions and how they work together, we dive right in for an update on Nissan’s adoption of the North American Charging Standard (aka Tesla Supercharger Network). As you may have heard, just as many OEMs announced that they were dropping the SAE-standard CCS Type 1 charger and switching to NACS, Tesla fired almost its entire charging team. We discover how this has impacted Nissan.
We also cover charging and energy usage closer to home, with Miller giving us an overview on a couple of his projects, the MyNissan App and Nissan Energy. As this conversation was held at Nissan’s headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee, we also got an update on some construction going on around their office buildings. Turns out Nissan is building its own micro electrical grid, that repurposes used Leaf batteries for storage of excess solar energy. This leads to a deeper discussion around batteries, sustainability, and new research by Nissan in solid state batteries.
And of course, we couldn’t let either of these gentlemen off the hot seat without asking them about future products. Third gen Leaf? R36 GT-R as alluded to by their Nissan Formula E colleague? You betcha.
Nissan’s making moves in the coming years, and Jonathan and Jonathan shed as much light as possible. Want to listen? Or better yet, watch!? Why not both? You can watch the vodcast right here or on our YouTube channel. If audio is your thing, download the podcast here or wherever you listen to your podcasts. If you like it, please tell your friends, share us on social media, like the video, and don’t forget to give us a five-star review. Better yet, ask us a question, and if we use if on an episode, we’ll send you some MotorTrend/The InEVitable swag. We hope you enjoyed the two Jonathans/Nissan episode this week, and remember Ed and Jonny are back next week with another new episode of The InEVitable!
