Vincent P. Wijnen (JP/Rachmadea Aisyah)

While Japan-based Nissan Motor Co.’s gloomy global financial and operational performance is in the international spotlight, the company is pinning its hopes on “opportunities for growth” in Indonesia’s underdeveloped electric vehicle market.

Nissan recently announced that it would cut 12,500 jobs globally and reduce production by 10 percent after its operating profit plunged 99 percent in the first fiscal quarter this year as its aging lineup weighs on profitability amid a global slump in car demand, according to international media reports.

In Indonesia, however, Nissan participated in this year’s Gaikindo Indonesia International Auto Show (GIIAS), held from July 18 to 28 at the Indonesia Convention Exhibition (ICE) center in BSD, Tangerang, showcasing electric vehicles as the company introduced an affordable electric vehicle, Leaf, in the country.

Nissan senior vice president for Asia and Oceania Vincent P. Wijnen spoke with The Jakarta Post’s Rachmadea Aisyah recently to discuss the company’s plans in Indonesia as it hopes to see growth in the country’s electric vehicle market. Here are excerpts from the interview.

Question: Could you start by elaborating on Nissan’s current market situation in Indonesia?

Answer: We are going through a transformation, strengthening our network, so we are investing a lot with our partners in renewing dealerships, and in some cases adding new dealerships as well, basically preparing for the launch of models we started launching last year.

We’ve already launched the Nissan Terra, Nissan Serena, the Livina, of course, and today we have launched the new X-trail, so basically we are preparing a network of our future growth because we see Indonesia as one of our big growth markets.

Indonesia’s market size is almost the same as Thailand’s, so in that way, those are the two biggest markets in the ASEAN region, but of course the potential here is way bigger because in Thailand, the market is already quite saturated and car ownership per household is very high, whereas in Indonesia, where there are 260 million people, there’s still a lot of opportunities for growth, so we believe this market will grow significantly in the future and that would make it the biggest market in ASEAN.

Nissan is unveiling a lot of new models at this year’s GIIAS, but of course the talk of the town is your Leaf model, which has been around in other countries for years but has only been introduced in Indonesia today. Can you share the process of Leaf entering the Indonesian market?

The first Leaf was launched in 2010. At the time, we were the first and only manufacturer that believed that the future was electrification, so we invested a lot of money in production in America, Europe and Japan.

Then we would have to start introducing the car in a situation where there was no supporting infrastructure for electric vehicles, so it would always take time to grow. But now, we believe and concentrate our efforts in markets that are starting to grow, so in many European markets and Japan, America and China.

It was not that other markets were not a priority, but because of the lack of infrastructure or interest in electrification, it was not our foremost priority. Now in ASEAN here, almost all of the governments are very interested in electrification. In many ways, they are interested in it from the manufacturing point of view and also from a car use point of view, because it addresses many issues like pollution, noise, et cetera.

How is Indonesia positioned in the overall electric vehicle market when compared with the rest of Southeast Asian or the broader Asian region?

There are some markets that have clearly chosen to invest in it already, like Hong Kong. Markets like Thailand are starting to allocate their infrastructure, but there is nowhere you already have a big market.

Some are a little bit earlier in looking and incentivizing and building infrastructure, but I don’t think Indonesia is far behind the other markets because there are no big volumes in any today.

We are not the only EV manufacturer. We did start the EV, but most other manufacturers are starting to also bring EVs to the market. The only advantage we have is that we have a lot of experience. We know what it takes to launch a car, we have not had any technical issues ever with the vehicles, so we have a lot of experience that other people don’t have. But you cannot do this alone. You need to work together with the government and with other stakeholders — energy companies. Otherwise, if you don’t initiate a certain level of infrastructure, the market is never going to grow.

Leaf is among some of the most affordable electric cars in the world and this what has put you on top of the EV market. With regards to that, would it be possible for Leaf to be produced in Indonesia as the Indonesian government has targeted to start producing EVs domestically by 2021 or 2022?

I cannot comment on that because it’s something that we do not talk about. But it is safe to say that we are not two or three years away from producing Nissan Leaf here. It’s not that simple. We don’t comment on investment plans that we may have for the future.

What are the challenges that may be keeping the EV industry here from growing as fast as the other fast-growing countries?

The issue is infrastructure. You need to have a full EV unit to be fully charged, not just in public charging stations but also at home. We have the knowledge and the technology to that, but you need willingness from the country to invest in the infrastructure. Otherwise, it’s going to be slow. We can still sell the car, but the issue is if it’s difficult for customers to charge anywhere. So to make it really successful, we need a package of advantages in the beginning, such as easy access to infrastructure, consumer benefits like priority parking, low taxes or even exemption for EVs, a priority lane on busy roads, et cetera.

We are not just bringing a fully battery-powered EV but also e-power, which means that the car is fully electric but has a small engine that charges the battery, so the benefit is that you don’t need charging. Anyone here in Indonesia can drive an EV without charging, and we believe in bringing the combination of full EV and e-power, we believe people can select the EV and not be limited by the infrastructure — we can basically launch it anywhere.

How do you position yourself among the EV competition between other carmakers in Indonesia?

It’s very nice that there are more competitors coming to sell EVs, because the more EVs there are here, the quicker the infrastructure will come, and the more infrastructure there is here, the more EVs we can sell. If we were the only ones with EVs, we would have a hard time. Nobody’s big enough by themselves to change the world. Carmakers with a big market share can maybe make a difference, but if it’s only one manufacturer, big change is not going to happen.

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