Nissan Motor Co. will unveil its new electric car on August 2 in Japan but just as a prototype, according to British site AutoCar.

The real car - touted as a medium size five door powered with lithium-ion batteries - will make its debut until October, at the Tokyo motor show. On August 2, Nissan will also open its headquarters in Yokohama, Japan.

Production of the electric vehicle will begin in winter 2010 at the company's Oppama plant in Japan with initial volumes of about 50,000 units, the site reported. Nissan plans to sell its first zero-emission cars in the U.S. and Japan in 2010 and mass market them globally in 2012.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Energy announced Nissan North America was given $1.6 billion to retool a plant in Smyrna, Tennessee to build electric cars and to build a lithium-ion battery manufacturing facility for its vehicles. The company plans to build more than 100,000 EV's annually at the plant, according to Chief Executive Officer Carlos Ghosn, Bloomberg reported yesterday.