Nissan Motor has belatedly waded into the worldwide battle for dominance of the “green” car market by unveiling plans to produce 100,000 electric vehicles per year at its plant in Tennessee.

Carlos Ghosn, the chief executive of Nissan, said that he hoped to produce electric cars that would compete with “normal cars” on price – a promise which investors said may be easier to make than keep.

The company’s announcement came as Nissan and its main domestic rivals are struggling to divert attention from what promises to be a dreadful year for earnings and which may still not deliver the hoped-for recovery in American car sales.

Toyota, nursing its first full-year loss in 59 years, emulated Nissan’s electric car announcement with its own claim that it would have a fuel-cell car on the road by 2015.

But the announcements from both companies came amid rising concern among analysts that the Japanese car industry’s grandiose bid for eco-friendliness may be limited by natural resources and other factors.

Deutsche Bank’s Kurt Sanger, said: "There is a lot of uncertainty about the future supply of batteries. A lot of what we are hearing are business plans, not production plans – and there is an important difference.”

Nissan, which is 44 per cent owned by France’s Renault, made the announcement at its annual shareholder meeting in Yokohama – an event where Nissan was under intense criticism for falling into the red and not paying a dividend for the second half of 2008. The company, said attendees, is under even greater pressure to explain how it intends to restore itself to profitability.

Mr Ghosn, under specific fire for not bringing Nissan into the hybrid vehicle market sooner, thus leaving Toyota and Honda to steal the show, was unable to defray investors’ major concerns.

He issued a gloomy warning that the economic crisis had not yet finished wreaking havoc on global car sales. “Our priority is surviving the crisis, which is not finished,” Mr Ghosn said, adding: “Is the worst behind us? I don't know.”

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