Nissan celebrates new HQ, 25 years in South

Speaking to reporters after a ceremony Tuesday attended by Gov. Phil Bredesen, Republican U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander and Nissan employees wearing commemorative T-shirts, Carlos Ghosn said the company working with its partner Renault is focused on making zero-emission, electric vehicles.

Nissan has said the first electric models will arrive in the U.S. in 2010 and will be selling internationally in 2012.

Ghosn said Nissan wants to "also be in the battery business" and that hybrids and other alternative fuel technologies are at risk of becoming outdated.

Ghosn predicted Nissan's 2009 auto sales will not increase from this year's level. Nissan NA sold 106,921 vehicles in the fiscal year that ended in March--a 6.7 percent share of the market.

"We are not working on one way of making electric cars. We are working on different ways," he said. "It's going to take some time before we decide how we are going to do it."

The design of the electric car has not been selected, but Ghosn said Nissan is "not proposing a boring car."

Nissan, however, must determine if the current appetite for small cars is possibly due only to the high cost of gasoline, Ghosn said.

Ghosn also announced a regional "zero-emission vehicle partnership" with the state of Tennessee and the Tennessee Valley Authority to promote the vehicles.

Nissan executives leading a tour of the new Nissan headquarters said it was primarily designed to provide maximum employee and energy efficiency.