The Nissan Technical Center North America and Nissan Trading Corp. are located in Farmington Hills. The Nissan technical center handled project engineering of vehicle bodies used in North America and Latin America. It also has a small laboratory, where as of 2012, several scientists were doing research on fuel cells. The company planned to add electrical battery and recharging of electrical vehicle research to the laboratory. As of January 2012 the technical center had 800 full-time employees. At that time Nissan planned to hire 150 more engineers to work in the technical center. The technical center opened in November 1991 at a cost of $80 million. In 2005 Nissan opened a $14 million design studio in Farmington Hills, and the Nissan AZEAL was the first car to be designed there.