Nissan Cube goes electric

At the moment, it's just a spark of an idea... But Nissan is promising this very special electric engined Cube offers a big clue to the future of the maker's small car line up.

Developed in 2007 as part of an effort to accelerate the development of the company's electric car line-up, the cute city car offers a powerful engine capable of driving both front and rear wheels.

This working prototype is the first to feature new battery technology that the maker says could debut as early as 2010 in the Cube's Mixim based replacement. Nissan has committed to building an all electric vehicle for the Japanese market by this date using this concept's laminated battery technology.

This sees the car's plug-in power pack shaped like a suitcase, and pound for pound offers twice the energy and 1.5 times the power of a similarly sized, conventional cylindrical unit.