The Japan Electric Vehicle Club has exceeded its own Guinness record for longest distance driven without recharging, achieving 1,003.184 km over 27.5 hours.
The club’s Daihatsu Mira EV was powered by a Sanyo battery system containing more than 8,320 lithium-ion batteries and ran at a speed of about 40 km/h at a track in Shimotsuma, in Ibaraki Prefecture.
Renault has unveiled the final production versions of two all-electric cars - the Fluence ZE sedan and the Kangoo ZE van. Both have a range of 160 kilometres and will be available in 2011.
The Fluence Z.E. is the first production-ready car that can take advantage of Better Place’s battery swapping system and will be the basis of the Better Place network in Israel. It will be sold through dealers in Europe.
Renault Fluence ZE
Renault Kangoo ZE
According to Evan Thornley, chief executive of Better Place Australia, 51 new models of plug-in electric cars are planned to on the world market by 2012.
Mr Thorley believes that the complete conversion to electric cars is inevitable. "We know how the movie ends. Battery prices are going down, petrol prices are going up - that tells you what’s going to happen. It’s just a question of how long that takes," he said. "We think it will take between 20 and 25 years for the entire Australian fleet to transition from petrol to electric because it takes a while for things to transition."
He also believes that there is an enormous opportunity for Australian car makers, with their experience in building large cars, to take a global leadership position in what is potentially the most profitable segment of the electric car market.
Australia will be the third country, after Israel and Denmark, in Better Place’s global rollout, with the first electric charging stations to open in Canberra late next year.
In other recent electric car developments:
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In an interview with BBC, Carlos Ghosn, the head of Renault-Nissan, has outlined how he is pinning the future of his company on the electric car.
"I think the trends we’re seeing are all pointing in the same direction," he said. "Oil is a challenge, both price and availability. Regulations about environments are going to get tougher and tougher. I think the new generation is much more demanding about respect for the environment than we have ever imagined."
Mr Ghosn believes that the only technology which could compete with electric cars is the hydrogen fuel cell car but these are currently too expensive. On the other hand, he thinks that the cost of electric cars can eventually be reduced to one third of the present price.
Renault-Nissan is planning to build 500,000 electric cars per year - and will begin mass marketing in 2011. Renault and Nissan will each have a selection of four electric cars meeting different requirements. But he says that Renault-Nissan is the only company investing in that kind of capacity.
He believes that this will result in American, European and Japanese car makers having to merge while at least one Chinese and one Indian company will become a major supplier on the world market within a decade.
British company, Riversimple, has shown its Mk 1 "network electric" car. The car is a hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicle about the size of a Smart Car.
The car features unique technologies that enable it to run on a 6kW fuel cell, with a fuel consumption equivalent to 0.008 litres per kilometre with greenhouse gas emissions at 30g per kilometre - less than a third of that from the most efficient petrol-engine cars (and ten times better than that if the hydrogen comes from renewable resources). It has a range of 320 kilometres and a top speed of 80 kilometres per hour
If that’s not revolutionary enough, Riversimple has a unique business model:
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Ford has showed off a prototype of what is being called called the Model T of the company’s electric car strategy - the battery-powered Focus sedan.
To keep costs down, the Focus will be built on the company’s global “C” platform, which is used in two million cars a year.
“This is about affordable transportation for the masses - this is not about a small niche,” said Nancy Gioia, Ford’s director of global electrification. “The assembly line in Michigan will produce the battery-electric Focus and also, with minor modifications, the gas Focus, We can change production as the market shifts.”
The production electric Focus, due in 2011, will be powered by lithium ion battery packs and will be based on the European version of the car. It will have a range of about 160 kilometres and a top speed of around 145 kilometres an hour.
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The French Government has announced plans to invest €1.5 billion ($au 2.5 billion) in infrastructure for the two million electric and hybrid cars it wants on the road by 2020.
The plan includes industrial research, making batteries, producing clean cars and building a nation-wide network of battery-charging stations.
Under the plan, a million battery-charging points will be built by 2015. From 2012 all new apartment blocks with parking lots will have to include charging stations. The network will grow to a total of four million points by 2020.
Funds will also be provided for the development of elecric cars by Renault, Peugeot/Citroen and Daimler’s Smart Car division. The French manufacturers presented their plans for electric and hybrid cars at the recent Frankfurt Motor Show. (See http://www.greenbizcafe.com/?p=661).
The electric car announcement comes just two weeks after the French Government announced that it would invest more than €7 billion ($au12 billion dollars) to develop freight transport by rail to reduce road traffic. The French Government also announced last month that a carbon tax would be introduced from next year to help cut fossil fuel consumption.
Wolkswagen has demonstrated the concept version of it’s E-Up! - a fully electric car which it says will be "the Beetle of the 21st century".
VW says that the car will have a maximum speed of 135 kilometres per hour and a range of 130 kilometres. Fully recharging from a standard 240 volt outlet will take five hours but quick charging to 80% capacity will only take one hour. Charging from the mains will be supplemented by solar panels in the roof and the sun-visors.
At 3.19 meters long. the E-Up! will be about 50centimetres shorter than the current Mini Cooper. It is designed to take three adults and one child. This is achieved by allowing the front passenger seat to slide forward of the driver’s seat, giving room for an adult behind the passenger but not behind the driver.
Volkswagen plans to keep equipment levels "frugal" - even ruling out electric wing-mirror controls - to reduce weight and cost.
The E-Up! is scheduled to go into mass production in 2013.
Source: Volkswagen press release
Citroen, Renault and Peugeot have all displayed new electric concept cars at the Frankfurt Motor Show.
Citroen showed its ultra-chic plug-in REVOLTe hybrid concept inspired by its iconic 2CV. The REVOLTe measures just 3.68m long, 1.73m wide and 1.35m tall. The most interesting feature is its original and distinctive three-seater layout - the driver’s seat is to one side with the two passenger seats behind it. The rear seat is designed to resemble a lounge with the passenger on the opposite side to the driver being able to stretch out their legs fully into the space where the front passenger seat would have traditionally been. Alternatively, it is possible to fit a rear-facing child-seat in the space.
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In an interview on the American Charlie Rose television show, Elon Musk, head of Tesla Motors, has described the company’s plans following the success of its Roadster sports car.
Tesla has already previewed its Model S, an electric sedan that Tesla says will carry seven passengers and provide more cargo space than any other sedan currently on the market. The Model S will be available in the United States in 2011 for about $US50,000. Tesla expects to sell about 20,000 sedans a year.
The Roadster, which is claimed to be the fastest mass market sports car in the world, sells aound 1,000 units a year at about $US100,000 each.
The Model S sedan will be followed by an electric SUV which Tesla plans to sell for less than $US30,000.
At the same time, the company is working with Daimler on an electric version of the Smart car. Daimler is a major shareholder in Tesla Motors.
Elon Musk was a co-founder of PayPal which he sold to eBay. He is also the founder and CEO of Space Exploration Technologies, which has signed an agreement with NASA to ship cargo to the International Space Station, and chairman of a company called Solar City that installs solar panels.
