Nissan has announced a strategic partnership with tech giant NEC for a lithium ion battery factory in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. The facility will operate under a new company dubbed Automotive Energy Supply and will be capable of putting out 16,000 batteries by next year, and 65,000 at full rate by 2011. With this $115 million announcement, Nissan's claims of putting EVs on the road by 2010 don't seem so far fetched. If Carlos the vanquisher says it will be, it will be. [Wired]