Toyota, Nissan in Electric Car Link : Technology: Japan’s two largest auto makers reportedly join forces at same time U.S. manufacturers are getting cold feet.

In what could be the biggest challenge yet to the lead U.S. auto makers have held with electric car technology, Toyota Motor Corp. and Nissan Motor Co. reportedly will combine efforts to build electric car components.

The two companies--Japan’s largest auto makers--are already exchanging technical information about batteries and control systems, the Associated Press said Friday, based on a report in the nationally circulated Mainichi newspaper. U.S. subsidiaries for the two companies could not confirm a formal pact.

“We’re having discussions with Toyota on the possibilities of combining resources,” said Jim Gill, spokesman for Nissan Motor Corp. U.S.A. “But we have not reached any agreements.”

A spokesman for Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc. said he also did not know of an agreement and could not contact Japanese executives. Friday was a national holiday in Japan.

“I like the competition,” said Jack Guy of the U.S. Advanced Battery Consortium on Friday. “If anything, it might be the kick in the butt to make us work harder.”

USABC is a combined effort by auto makers, electric utilities and the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a better battery, considered key to a commercially attractive electric car.

“The race goes to the swift,” said Michael R. Peevey, president of Southern California Edison Co. and chairman of Calstart, a group attempting to build an advanced transportation industry in California. “If this is true, the Japanese seem to be moving aggressively at a time when the U.S is potentially losing ground.”

The Japanese move would be similar to U.S. efforts to combine research and development for electric car components under the U.S. Council for Automotive Research.

U.S. auto makers’ research is “very aggressive,” said USCAR spokesman Larry Weis. “I don’t think long term that (a Japanese pact) is going to change the playing field to any major extent.”

Yet U.S. auto makers have recently gotten cold feet about the market for electric cars. Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Corp. offer only limited numbers of electric vehicles, which are converted from gasoline versions and are aimed at fleet users. General Motors Corp. had promised by the mid-1990s the first mass-market passenger vehicles designed specifically as electric cars. But GM recently backed away from that deadline.