Nissan has been giving a second life to its car batteries for years. In Melilla they use them as an anti-blackout system

Nissan has once again focused its attention on one of its most unique Spanish projects. And it is that in a recent press releasethe company recovered the case of Melilla as an example of how it is promoting the “second life” of its electric car batteries. The installation It has been operating in the city for several years now.but the project remains one of Nissan’s central arguments to defend that a battery that is no longer useful to power a car still has a lot to contribute to the electrical grid. What exactly is it about? The project is called Second Life and was born from an alliance between Nissan, the energy group Enel (through its Spanish subsidiary Endesa) and the Italian company Loccioni, specialized in measurement and control systems. The idea is to take advantage of Nissan LEAF batteries that have finished their time in the car to set up a stationary energy storage system. According to advertisement When the company itself made the project public, the installation combines 48 used LEAF batteries with 30 new ones, for a total of 78 units. Why Melilla and not another city. Melilla is an unusual case within the electrical system in Spain, since it is isolated, is not connected to the national distribution network and depends entirely on a single thermal power plant operated by Endesa. In other words, if that plant falls, the entire city is left without electricity. And precisely that point makes the city the ideal setting to test backup systems like Nissan’s. How it works in practice. The battery pack acts as an emergency generator. It has a power of 4 MW and a capacity of up to 1.7 MWh of stored energy. If the plant is disconnected, the system can inject electricity into the Melilla grid for about 15 minutes. It may not seem like much, but it is the margin that is considered sufficient to reactivate the plant and restore the supply without the population noticing a prolonged outage. Come on, it serves as a cushion to avoid blackouts and keep the network stable (although it is not shockproof. such problematic blackouts like April 2025). An interesting technical detail. The system does not disassemble the batteries cell by cell. According to explains The company, when each pack is removed from a vehicle, is placed directly into the storage system just as it was mounted in the car. It is a way to reuse the assembly without a complex dismantling process, something that makes reuse cheaper and simpler. Strategy. The brand frames Second Life within its concept of the “4Rs”: reuse, remanufacture, resell and recycle. It is a circular economy logic, since a battery that loses performance in a car still retains a good part of its capacity, sufficient for uses where it is not required as much, such as fixed energy storage. Soufiane Elkhomri, Director of Nissan Energy Services for the AMIEO region, counted Furthermore, the collaboration with Enel allowed them to create “a model for the second life of a battery, which can be applied to many other use cases.” A first step. Melilla is just one piece in a broader commitment than Nissan replicate in other placessuch as the LEAF batteries that support the Fiumicino airport in Rome or some of its facilities in Japan. The idea is interesting, especially in terms of reusing a component as critical as a car battery. It remains to be seen, in any case, to what extent this type of solution becomes widespread as millions of electric vehicle batteries reach the end of their first life in the coming years. Cover image | Christelle Hayek and Giovanni Della Checa In Xataka | A ‘shitty plan’ to save the countryside: Europe turns to manure to tackle the fertilizer crisis

If it is a matter of time for AI to enter our cars, Nissan and Deepseek have decided to advance

Deepseek’s adoption is being much faster than that of Chatgpt. The artificial intelligence that arises as the new reference in China is already integrating natively into smartphones manufacturers, such as Honor and Nubia In your native country. He is also landing in electric cars, such as ByD, which have already signed agreements to improve their autonomous driving system thanks to Deepseek technology. Following his steps, the first Japanese manufacturer to bet on this Open Source model for greater interface level integration has been Nissan. A plan similar to the byd. This week we knew byd’s plans to integrate Depseek into its research and development line. The agreement with Byd had as its main focus to implement an advanced autonomous driving system, raised for both high -end vehicles and for the most accessible. Beyond the autonomous driving plans, improvements were raised in the vehicle’s own software thanks to the integration of this AI. Is exactly what he wanted Announce Nissan. The company has revealed that its new electric sedan, the Nissan N7 (a vehicle born of a joint venture with the Dongfeng and oriented to the Asian market), is the first vehicle to incorporate a deep integration with Depseek-R1. The vehicle will be able to process natural language, make recommendations related to navigation and entertainment system, as well as adjust to driver’s habits to vary their behavior. A thrust for software. From a time to this part, the software has become one of the main keys when it comes to a vehicle. Android Auto, Android Automotive, Apple CarPlay, Own Solutions of the manufacturer, Alliances with video game development companies… Who wants to lead the car of the future has to lead in software, and alliances with agents such as Depseek will be key to it. China is also one of the countries that is leading the transition to the electric vehicle, and having the main alternative to Chatgpt can completely shake the market. Nissan is not alone. Nissan and Byd are not the only companies that have approached Depseek. The gigantic Chinese group Geely, owner among others of Polestar and Volvo, has also opted for China to integrate it in the future in some of its vehicles. The objective and advantage for the user? The same as in the previous case: that drivers can enjoy a more connected driving experience, thanks to the natural understanding of language that these models allow. Image | Nissan In Xataka |The brief love story between Nissan and Honda is over. Now another buyer appears on the horizon: Foxconn

Honda and Nissan have broken negotiations for their merger. Now another buyer appears on the horizon: the iPhone manufacturer

Both companies believe that the most appropriate is to cease negotiations With these words, Honda and Nissan have confirmed that they have not reached an agreement and that, therefore, they put an end to their negotiations to add forces. What in March 2024 was exposed as a collaboration agreementat the end of the year was taking fusion form. Until, finally, there were clear that Honda would buy an important part of Nissan. Although there has been talk of Japanese government pressures to force the merger between both companies and try to get Nissan out of a financial hole that points to 9,000 layoffsthe truth is that Honda does not seem completely willing to merge from equal to equal. In recent days, the clearest option seemed to buy Honda of the totality or an important part of Nissan for turn it into a kind of subsidiarysomething that has ended up breaking negotiations. Nissan is now in a complicated situation but has preferred to maintain some independence in its future development. At the moment, it has to face the thousands of dismissals mentioned above but that will be nothing more than the confirmation that the company will fulfill its reduction in production by 20%. They are demanding but mandatory measures now that the profits of profits for the fiscal year that ends soon in Japan 70% have been adjusted compared to the original forecasts. At the moment, companies have announced that they are still open to collaborations for the development of potential future products although there is nothing written about this. Both companies face a future challenge with the electric car. Beyond Japan, the United States aims to be its strongest market but Nissan has fallen hard in the countrywhile putting Great efforts to jump into the electric car in the medium term. In Europe, where the road to the electric car has been paving from the political spheres, Nor has he received the expected support. To all of the above you have to add a context that has further complicated things. In Europe the idea begins to slide They will delay pressure measures to manufacturers to jump into the electric car. In the United States, Donald Trump is determined to end the promotion of this technology that Joe Biden had promoted with large tax incentives. Steel and aluminum tariffs They can be the icing to make the product more expensive and hinder its economic viability. In all this jaleo, a new player appears on the horizon. Foxconn and the car, the eternal desired Since the economic difficulties that Nissan is going through, Foxconn has been seen, he would see that he would be interested in buying an important part of the company and starting to manufacture its vehicles. The Taiwanese company is known for the production of iPhone But he has long since assured that his experience producing all kinds of technological devices may be sufficient to produce your own vehicles. Intentions are clear for years: produce platforms with all the integrated hardware necessary to make each manufacturer contributing its distinctive point with the software. To assert its position, Foxconn has been insisting that this way of working is perfect for launching electric cars at a low price. In December 2022Liu Young-Way, his CEO, said that the company’s strategy went to reach between 40 and 50% of world car production. The first milestone was marked by 2025 when they aspired to produce 5% world vehicles. Obviously, this will not happen but aware of the difficulties Nissan has, Foxconn has been interested in at least, with the shareholding that Renault keeps in the Japanese company as a consequence of the alliance, Woven under the mandate of Carlos Ghosnand its subsequent agreements that have been diluting participation of the French. With the negotiations between Honda and Nissan, foxconn again gained strength after Nissan will confirm last week which was open to new collaborations, including that of the Taiwanese company. Since then, the Rumors They have been taking strength although their managers have been elusive. In his last statements, Foxconn has made it clear that his true intention with Nissan would be framed within a collaboration and not of the purchase from your shareholders. These statements, of course, came before the publication of the cessation of negotiations between Honda and Nissan. Photo | Sling In Xataka | Nissan pointed to the electric car as a future plan. It will fire 9,000 employees and prove Toyota

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