This has been in the news for some time now, but no blogger in the Jordanian blogsphere commented on it, or at least I do not know of any who did. So I said to my self, may be I should do that? Anyways, it has been always my job to comment on energy related issues, and I honestly feel like I was getting lame with my latest 5 or 6 posts, discussing human nature and stuff like that, so it is time to go back again into my anti-governmental-bullshit stance!
I read the Arabic articles published on Jordanian online news websites, and as usual, they made no sense, and were full of mistranslations, so I went after articles written in English, and, will, I have to say I am impressed not! If you haven't already heard about the news, here is what was going on in a nutshell: Nissan's corporate vice president and our Minster of environment signed a document to help Jordan become more energy independent in the form of creating electrical sustainable mobility solutions.
So Nissan wants to aid our "ambitious" minster in fulfilling his dream of a green Jordan. That sounds great but smells fishy. Mind you, electrical cars looks as if they were zero emission machines but they are not; the electricity you use to charge your car was generated in a thermal station, somewhere in Jordan, that burns fuel and emit green house gases. Believe it or not, compared to hybrid cars, they might emit even more CO2. Hybrid cars are ultra low emission machines that have very small ecological footprint when it comes to fueling, with a very important advantage when compared to electrical cars: they do not need new infrastructure.
To be honest, the articles say something about Nissan considering the use of solar energy to power these cars someday in the future, but one have to know that this is a far fetched goal even for a technologically advanced country like Japan. Bottom line, Jordanians won't be powering their electrical cars using solar refueling stations anytime soon. But why is Nissan interested in helping Jordan becoming more eco-friendly, and signs a memo of collaboration with the Jordanian government when the only thing that the government did was promising Nissan to consider buying 300 cars for its public sector? Amongst the multitude of lame statements made by both sides in that meeting, which sounded more like advertising than real discussions, there was this one interesting statement made by our minister.
This Nissan electrical car called LEAF will be exempted from customs duty. But still it makes no sense; the car is too expensive, 8 hours charging time for 160 kms (like a Jordanian would be satisfied with that), not for a mountainous terrain (do not be fooled by the performance they state in their ads, this performance is the best case scenario which is attainable only in labs under ideal conditions) and I do not think that any cars merchandiser will fall for the exemption trick again; they lost a lot to do it one more time that soon.
Here is what I think this thing is all about: Nissan is touring the world marketing their new car, but the car have a one big flaw, will, not a flaw but more like a trade off that is not in favor of hot regions; its battery is not well cooled and that can be quite problematic in the Middle East. If the weather was too hot, which is usually the case in summer, your car might explode! The Arab gulf is one of the hugest markets of cars on earth, so it is definitely a very important target for any sane car company management team. And now that there is a strong tendency toward green energy and sustainability in oil rich Arab states, Nissan hopes that by signing this memo with Jordan, they will start an electrical cars fever in the region, and may be get the needed funds to overcoming their overheating problem.
I want to believe what they say, but the story told is really unrealistic; why would a car company that have been on a losing streak for a long time now amid a global recession that took its toll on cars companies the most, be interested in helping Jordan, the country that added costume duties on hybrid cars, which can be more Eco-friendly compared to electrical cars, in attaining their "Green" dream for free? May be because green is the color of dollars for both sides. Whatever the reason is, I doubt that Nissan is stupid enough to do such a thing before studying the Jordanian market, which is right now, thanks to the government, more resistive toward any new types of cars, and will most probably stay like this for the coming 10 years. Can you smell fish now?
