Automotive Financial Group Automotive Financial Group Automotive Financial Group (normally styled as AFG) was a British company specialising in automotive retailing, and the sale of associated products and services. The company was founded by the Austro Hungarian businessman Octav Botnar, as an extension of his successful Nissan import and distribution company "Nissan UK". Botnar had successfully built up a successful business since 1970, importing and marketing cars of the Datsun/Nissan within Britain, eventually attaining a 6% overall market share by 1980, to the point where the United Kingdom was the only export market where Nissan outsold its arch rival Toyota. Botnar had achieved
Automotive Energy Supply Corporation a further ¥100 billion ($1.1 billion) in AESC, establishing an additional factory to increase capacity for around 200,000 vehicles per year. Trial production at Zama began mid 2009. In 2010 the Nissan Leaf electric vehicle began production, using batteries from AESC. In 2014 AESC was the second largest electric vehicle battery manufacturer worldwide (after Panasonic), with 21% of the market. In late 2014 Reuters reported conflict within the Nissan / Renault carmaker alliance over sourcing of battery packs for its Nissan Motor Manufacturing UK and Nissan Smyrna assembly plant (USA) car battery plants due to lack of price competitiveness with