6.22.2009 8:33 AM

Nissan Will Open Electric Car Factory in U.S.

Green jobs are coming to Tennessee, thanks to a $1 billion investment in a new electric car and lithium-ion battery factory.

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Nissan Cube

Photo: Nissan

By Dan Shapley

Nissan will build its electric car -- maybe an electric version of the recently hyped Cube? -- in the U.S., bringing an undisclosed number of green jobs to Smyrna, Tenn., according to Reuters.

Together with an affiliated NEC lithium-ion battery manufacturing plant, Nissan will invest as much as $1 billion in the new electric cars -- which it plans to pump out by 2012 (as many as 100,000 per year).

Whatever happens, the new advertising campaign for the little white Cube as a "portable device" is brilliant. The 2009 Cube gets 29 mpg (automatic; the manual is rated only for 26 mpg). That leaves it behind the 14 cars and SUVs that get better than 30 mpg, but squarely in line with other hip new micro cars promising to remake the American road.