Back at the start of June, Infiniti announced the LE was on hold indefinitely, after being re-confirmed for production in August 2012. Now Infiniti says it is still planning on the LE luxury electric vehicle, and that it was merely delayed in order to receive some new technology. Sounds a little bit like Audi and their on-again off-again R8 E-tron.
Nissan’s head of global planning, Andy Palmer, says the Infiniti LE delay is because the premium automaker wants to incorporate more advanced charging and battery technology into the car before it heads to production. Palmer denied speculation that the delay of the LE meant Infiniti and Nissan were losing interest in electric vehicles. He did not put a new date on the launch that was previously scheduled for launch in 2015, but Palmer did say the Infiniti LE was “not significantly” delayed and went on the say the LE is still within Nissan’s mid-term plan. We can hope the LE will show up in late 2015 or early 2016.
“There are some interesting advances in electric technology we hadn’t anticipated when we showed the LE, which, by delaying a little bit, we can incorporate into the car,” he said. Infiniti also wants to incorporate new lithium ion battery technology. It’s apparently so good, that alone would have justified delaying the car. Palmer said the new battery technology will increase range and lower the price of future electric vehicles.
Is it safe to assume this revolutionary technology will also show up in the Leaf at some point, as well as the e-NV200 electric minivan Nissan has been testing around the world?
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