Nissan Motor Co. CEO Carlos Ghosn said Friday he believes environmentally friendly electric cars will dominate the future as automakers join the fight against global warming. This is why the Japanese automaker and its French Alliance partner Renault AG are developing an electric car in Israel. The car is expected to be mass produced by 2011.

Ghosn also revealed that Nissan and Renault is working on other advanced vehicles including hybrid engines and hydrogen fuel cells as government policies in different parts of the world will dictate the trend for automakers.

The French executive was in Malaysia to deliver a speech hosted by Khazanah Nasional Bhd, the Malaysian government's investment arm. "I think the future would be ... zero emission cars. Particularly among urban drivers, there is a lot of appeal. We are pushing particularly this technology but we are not putting all our eggs in the same basket," Ghosn said in a news conference.

Ghosn said diesel cars accounted for half of sales in Europe but only less than one percent of sales in Japan and the United States. "We have to be careful that we do not, as car manufacturers, embark in only one direction because we can be taken by surprise as regulations and political campaigning can bring different twists into what in the end is the dominant technology," Ghosn said. "We have to be prepared into pushing different technologies in different markets... that is, in a nutshell, our strategy.”

Notwithstanding the economic crunch in the American, Europe and Japanese markets, Ghosn said the maker of Nissan OEM parts expects its global sales for the fiscal year through March 2008 to go beyond its forecast of 3.7 million units. The executive, however, did not go into details.

For the fiscal year through March 2009, he said mature markets are likely to remain stagnant but sales will be boosted by growth in developing countries such as Russia, China, India, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, The Associated Press reported.

"In 2008 you are going to see a mixed picture," he said. "But we have a strategy of technology and products and enlargement of the brand ... that will allow us to grow even though the overall market is stagnant."

Ghosn said the alliance is working with India's Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd. to build a below US$3,000 car by late 2010 or early 2011. "If it is successful in India, we will launch it in many developing countries where we think there is demand," he concluded.