Nissan recently broke ground on an eventual $1.8 billion U.S. investment for the manufacture of advanced lithium-ion batteries and the assembly of its Leaf electric car, which goes on limited sale in December (although it won’t be seen in Texas until sometime in 2011).The battery plant will be built behind the Nissan manufacturing facility near Nashville, Tenn., where the company already makes such vehicles as the Altima sedan and coupe, Maxima sedan, Frontier pickup, and Xterra and Pathfinder sport utilities (as well as the Suzuki Equator pickup). When it opened in 1983, it was the first U.S. assembly plant for a Japanese automaker.    

The battery plant, a $1 billion investment by itself, and reconfiguration of the adjacent auto plant to allow for assembly of the Leaf, will bring 1,300 new jobs to the facility and allow Nissan to make up to 200,000 of the battery packs and 150,000 of the cars annually.

It’s a big gamble, pouring even more money into an ambitious project to build electric cars that some critics say consumers might never embrace.

But Nissan President and CEO Carlos Ghosn said he remains fully committed to the project, to which Nissan and its European partner, Renault, already have pledged more than $5 billion.

Analysts say the Leaf and other Nissan/Renault electric cars might succeed if gasoline prices rise to new record levels and remain there, but otherwise they could be slow catching on with consumers. The Leaf runs completely on battery power and must be recharged by an external source — whereas hybrids also have gasoline engines to recharge the batteries and to propel the vehicles.

Although Nissan will become the first automaker to attempt to mass-market electric cars, “there is not a mass market for these vehicles yet,” said George Peterson, president of the research firm AutoPacific.

The idea of Nissan embracing the electric car, while bypassing the hybrid vehicles that have been so successful for rival Toyota, isn’t really a surprise, he said.

“It’s kind of the wild, wild West out there right now, with manufacturers trying all kinds of things from hybrids to plug-in hybrids to pure electrics,” Peterson said. “Who knows what the right technology is going to be? But pure electrics are still hampered by a short range and a long charge time. Until those issues are resolved, a hybrid seems to make a lot more sense.”

The Tennessee investment is being financed mostly by a $1.4 billion loan from the federal government for alternative-fuel-vehicle manufacturing. The battery plant and the upgrades at the assembly plant are expected to be completed by late 2012. Until then, Nissan will import the Leaf and battery packs from Japan.