Nissan poised to name new U.S. battery supplier

NASHVILLE — Nissan Motor Co. will announce a U.S. battery supplier for its next-generation electric vehicles “in a few weeks,” the automaker’s Americas chief Jeremie Papin said at the Automotive News Congress here Wednesday.

This year, Nissan said it would invest $500 million to turn its Canton, Miss., assembly plant into a “center for EV manufacturing and technology.” Under that overhaul, Canton will produce two new EVs, one for the Nissan brand, the other for Infiniti, starting in 2025.

“There is a need to have a very close connection between the battery supplier and the car manufacturer,” Papin said. “The knowledge that is being shared between the two is very much at the heart of a battery-electric vehicle.”

Nissan currently sources batteries for the U.S.-made Leaf hatchback from the Smyrna, Tenn., battery plant majority-owned by Chinese energy company Envision Group. That battery factory was originally built and owned by Nissan at the outset of the EV era, with plans to supply as many as 150,000 vehicles a year.

But Nissan’s early plans for EV adoption did not materialize. AutoForecast Solutions estimates that the Smyrna battery plant can supply 30,000 to 50,000 vehicles with battery packs.