By Andre Palma
Philippine Daily Inquirer

FIRST, congratulations on your status as a respected leader in the international automobile industry. No, strike that. Rock star seems a title more appropriate. Turning around the worldwide operations of Nissan is possibly one of the greatest feats in the history of man making the automobile. You did that as an outsider, a gaijin at that. And now you have a Japanese cartoon character in your likeness to show for it.

Everything you seem to do is done in boldface. Unveiling the R35 Nissan GT-R, the spiritual successor of the Skyline, to the driving world last year in Tokyo, stole the show for all intents and purposes. Standing there, elbow to solar plexus with the rest of the world’s motoring press, even our habitually cynical lot was obviously excited. I was there in the Godzilla-frenzied mosh pit and have lousy, ill-taken photos filled with other journalists’ heads and shoulders to prove it.

Your statements at Davos this year were typically far from low-key as well. Betting Renault’s and Nissan’s future on electric vehicles is considerably risky. Add to that the pledge that your electric car will be fun to drive and provide a significant economic advantage over the internal combustion engine. Imagine the anticipation for this landmark endeavor, especially when it’s the CEO of world’s fourth largest automotive conglomerate doing the talking. Double the expectation since Carlos Ghosn spoke those words himself.

It would take a car of unparalleled significance to pull this off. Your electric vehicle will have to go beyond the Model T, the hybrid Prius and Ratan Tata’s exercise in automotive minimalism, the pro-poverty Nano. Those are some serious benchmark there, Mr. Ghosn.

The Renault-Nissan electric vehicle would have to look, feel and smell like any other car. On top of that, people will have to be convinced that somehow, yours is better. It is only after these requirements have been surpassed that the real punch-line be pulled, “And oh, by the way, it’s electric.” Don’t forget also that your electric vehicle will have to be affordable, bordering on shamefully cheap. Good luck, you’ll need it.

Building and selling such a car now is beyond my imagination. Having driven the technology demonstrators of the other players in the industry, it seems like mass market acceptable, alternative energy vehicles are, at the very best, still a decade and a half away. It seems to take a dozen guys in lab coats to keep these kinds of vehicles running, even on just a test track. How can this be practical in any sense of the word?

Thankfully, it appears as though I’m mistaken. In another surprising statement that was quoted in the media this week, your car of the future seems to already be in the here and now.

“We are not interested in some ‘Star Wars’ prototype, but in bringing a mass-market product that everybody can buy. It is a new chapter in the life of this industry,” you said, announcing plans to introduce a zero-emission electric vehicle in the United States and Japan by 2010 (Time Magazine, Briefing, May 26, 2008).

Great news for the developed world, but we in the poverty strangled third world need this product just as badly. While most of our power generation is still fossil fuel fed, a working and practical purely electric vehicle will point us in the right direction at the very least.

When the time comes and clean, renewable methods of generating electricity become readily available to us, the electric car will all but sign our emancipation from the oil monopoly that profiteers on the world’s misery. The impact of the US$135 price of oil per barrel already has the potential for creating societal chaos in the third world of unthinkable proportions. Imagine what will happen when true oil scarcity hits.

Please don’t keep us waiting, Mr. Ghosn. You of all people should understand that bold moves, timed to perfection can overcome established tradition and stubborn status quos. What’s at stake here is greater than the turnaround at Nissan, more spectacular than the rebirth of the world-beating Japanese super car genre. The opportunity to redefine the automobile is at hand. Saving the world in the process will look good on your resumé as well.