Nissan Looking To Keep Its Cars Sunny Side Up

ICP SOLAR Enters into Sales Contract with Nissan for New OEM Solar Charger ICP Solar

When I was looking to buy a new van I walked the expansive lot of a local Toyota dealer. I found the color and model I wanted and came back the next day to test drive it. When I came back, the van was nowhere to be found. After an hour of looking around, the salesman and I found out that the van had a dead battery and had stalled at a local gas station. I decided to buy the van anyway and waited around for the battery to be charged, that was another couple of hours. Then when I got the van home, the van's battery was dead once again. Back we went to the dealer where they popped in a brand new battery. The dead battery easily cost me half a day and the dealership a battery.

Another scenario, I went to the Porsche dealer to test drive a Boxster. When I got to the dealer, an entire row of cars was idling. I asked what was going on and they told me they were charging up the batteries. It seemed like a lot of wasted gas to me. We picked out a car and started off on our adventure. As you might imagine, the car was also low on gas. We stopped to add a few gallons of fuel and as luck would have it the Boxster would not restart because of a dead battery. The portable jump kit we had wasn't enough to get her going, so the dealership had to bring in a Volvo to revive the Porsche.

Nissan thinks they've got this dead battery business all sorted out: solar battery chargers. It makes perfect sense, most cars sit out in the merry sunshine for weeks if not months and they could be keeping their batteries topped off the whole time. I don't think this scenario would have worked for my Toyota because it was being stored in a dark garage, but for most dealers these chargers would be a real boon.

source: ICP Solar via Kicking Tires

photo source: sophie