Nissan Motor Co. announced Monday a new operational system across the Americas while emphasizing its move to introduce electric, zero emissions vehicles in its car lineup.

Nissan said it has consolidated its operations in North America, Latin American and the Caribbean. The consolidated unit, called the Management Committee-Americas, will be chaired by Carlos Tavares. He was previously the Executive Vice President of the company’s Americas Operations.

The automaker established two operations committees, one for North America and one for Latin America and the Caribbean.

With steady improvements in quality and reliability of Nissan and Infiniti vehicles over the past years, we are now on fertile ground to grow our presence in the region, Tavares said in a statement today. We are taking a holistic approach to unlock new synergies in the region and to shift the Americas to zero-emission mobility.

Nissan also said it will launch a battery electric vehicle in the United States and Japan in 2010. Two years later, Nissan's electric cars will be made available to the mass market globally, it stated.

The Japanese firm is sure that demand for electric cars will increase after the economy recovers and oil prices rise.

“When GDP growth comes back on a worldwide basis, there will be again attention on the oil market, which will trigger an oil price increase,” Tavares said in an interview with Bloomberg last Friday.

Japan