Renault and its partner Nissan plan to jointly build a plant in France to produce batteries for electric vehicles starting in 2012, with an annual capacity of enough batteries for about 60,000 cars, Japan's Nikkei business daily has reported.

As part of its plan to supply lithium-ion batteries to Renault for use in electric vehicles, Nissan will invest about US$550 million ($765 million) to upgrade supply capacity in Japan and build the plant in France, the newspaper added.

In addition to batteries, Nissan and Renault plan to work together on motors and other key components of electric vehicles to bring down production costs, the Nikkei reported.

Nissan was not immediately available for comment but its CEO Carlos Ghosn said last week that the Franco-Japanese alliance, which has unveiled plans to manufacture batteries in Japan, the United States, Portugal and Britain, was considering production of batteries for electric vehicles in France.

He also said last month the alliance was ready to produce half a million electric car batteries annually.

Nissan plans to begin selling electric cars in Japan in the second half of next year, followed a year later by Renault and then global mass production in 2012.

- AP