from Edmunds.com
The Electric Car's Not Dead; Asian Companies Strive for Breakthrough
TOKYO - Three Asian automakers are hoping to have electric cars on sale before the end of the decade.
And all are claiming the cars will have greater range and much faster recharge times than previous-generation EVs.
Japan's Mitsubishi Motors and Tokyo Electric Power Co. have announced plans to jointly develop a next-generation electric car and release it in Japan in 2008. The car is derived from the Miev, an electric concept car based on the Colt subcompact. The joint effort is expected to shorten development time, so Mitsubishi plans to launch the Miev in 2008. It will have a 155-mile range after a four-hour recharge, at a price below $18,000.
Japanese rival Subaru also plans to introduce an all-electric minicar by 2010. The electric car will use a lithium-ion battery that can be recharged to 90 percent of charge capacity within 5 minutes. The car will have a range of about 125 miles.
Also in the game is Chinese battery maker Byd, which bought local automaker Xi'an Qinchuan Auto in 2004 for $32 million. Byd is the world's second largest maker of rechargeable batteries for mobile phones, behind Japan's Sanyo. Byd claims it has developed an EV with a range of 250 miles per charge, to be launched in 2006. The company is building a 200,000-unit plant in western China, and is looking to export worldwide.
What this means to you: EVs are cleaner than hybrids, but are limited by the efficiency of battery technology. Advances in mobile phone and laptop computer batteries seem to be putting EVs back on the menu for carmakers.
No comments:
Post a Comment