One of the hurdles in the way of the widespread adoption of electric vehicles is the ability to pull into a fuel station for a quick fill-up. A "multi-million" dollar injection from Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital could very well give Dutch company Epyon just what it needs to leap over that obstacle. The company claims their technology can charge lithium ion batteries in as little as five to fifteen minutes instead of the hours it typically takes now. How do they do it? By using "state-of-the-art power conversion techniques and intelligent control systems" combined with high-power lithium ion and supercapacitor storage. The needs of each cell within the battery are evaluated and met through communication between the charger and battery management system (BMS). Also, by incorporating an energy reservoir into its system, Epyon avoids the predicament of overloading the grid with extreme demand spikes.

You won't see an Epyon station on the side of the road tomorrow though. The first thing they need to do is build some installation demonstration units and partner up with an appropriate battery company. The company, a spin-off of the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, plans on concentrating their initial installations in large commercial facilities such as airports or other industrial environments. Let's just hope the technology doesn't take too long to trickle down to personal vehicles since this is the kind of energy-charging solution that American electric vehicle manufacturers would seem to prefer.

[Source: Clean Break / Earth2Tech]

From the outside looking in, electric car development programs seem to proceed at a snail's pace and are filled with many ambiguous meanderings. Even when company executives make lots of public statements, the waters stay muddied. A recent interview with Tohru Hashimoto, Corporate General Manager of the Mitsubishi innovative Electric Vehicle business or the "MiEV Promotion Office" conducted by Stephen Clemenger and published on the EV World website, refreshingly goes some way to shed light on the reasons behind many of the decisions taken by that company - as well as it's path ahead.

After a brief history of Mitsubishi's involvement with battery electric cars since the 1960s and its more recent development program featuring the Colt EV MIEV and Lancer Evolution MIEV, Hashimoto explaines that they want to introduce an electric car to the "real market" as soon as possible. Some of the other, more significant points made are as follows;

• Mitsubishi would like to have a "lease type agreement" with individual customers (yes, we can hear your groans)
• A larger model iMiEV is in the works though the focus will be on the current configuration (pictured above) until after it launches
• In-wheel motors should be used by Mitsubishi in 5 to 10 years though a smaller companies may use them sooner
• Mitsubishi will add a range extender in future for larger models though it is unlikely to be a fuel cell (yes, we can hear your cheers)
• Mitsubishi has no interest in making Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEVs) and will continue to manufacture cars with doors and seating for four (more cheers)
  

If you have the time for the entire interview click on the "read" link below and gain more insight into Mitsubishi's electric car future through the eyes of Tohru Hashimoto. Also, check out this morning's official statement from Mitsubishi on working with Peugeot on electric cars.

[Source: EV World]

Click above for more images of the SAM from Cree Ltd.

There is a new all electric three-wheeler in Switzerland known as the SAM, produced by Cree Ltd. Featuring a power pack made up of six individual batteries which produces 168 volts, the 15kW motor, which also produces 80Nm of torque, is capable of propelling the SAM to speeds of up to 85 kilometers per hour (about 53 mph). Acceleration is fairly leisurely, but that's not really the point with this particular machine, is it? The range is not stellar, just 60 kilometers, or 37 miles. The price, though, would make this an extremely attractive machine to many: just $10,000.

In terms of design, SAM looks pretty good, with its aluminum backbone chassis and independent front suspension with a transverse leaf spring -- like the Corvette. The weight comes in at 695 kilograms, or about 1,500 pounds. Safety measures include three-point seatbelts along with an integrated roll bar. This is exactly the type of vehicle we'd love to see come to the U.S. as a replacement for the ZAP Xebra, which proved that there is in fact a market in the states for alternative transportation such as this.


[Source: Cree Ltd. via Faster and Faster]

The term "rickshaw" covers a wide variety of vehicles around the world but in Nepal it usually refers to the three-wheeler you see pictured above. They used to create clouds of pollution in the capitol, Kathmandu, but the Vikram Tempo rickshaw, the fossil fuel burning version of this conveyance, has been outlawed since 1999. Since then, electric versions, or Safa Tempo, have been steadily increasing in numbers. Now, according to one retailer, Shree Eco Visionary (SEV), there are at least 650 EVs plying Kathmandu streets fulfilling the daily transportation needs of over 100,000 people. SEV hopes to see the number of Safa Tempo rise to 4,000 over the next five years.

Not only are the electric machines more eco-friendly, they are, after the initial purchase cost of $13,500 has been dealt with, much cheaper to run than their smoking counterparts. According to an article at IBN Live, the electric rickshaws cost about seven cents per kilometer, a figure that should remain low even as the price of oil climbs steadily higher. Capable of traveling up to 70 kilometers on a charge, the Safa Tempo are seen as a good low-tech solution to the problem of vehicle pollution in Nepal. To see a clip of these machines doing their thing on the streets of Kathmandu and listen to the original report, hit the jump.

Taking an older vehicle, gutting the powertrain and converting it to operate solely on electrons is certainly not a new phenomenon. It's been done many times and many ways with varying results. Fairleigh Dickinson University graduate engineering student, Sai Sankar, is a relatively new to the art of EV conversions. Sankar started with a 1994 Chrysler minivan for his project. According to Edmunds, you can get one in running order for about $1,500. Of course, for a project of this type a non-running example would suffice and should cost considerably less. Sankar built the electric van for a sustainable entrepreneurship symposium at the school called Growing the Next Generation of Green Ventures. He evidently used about $6,000 worth of off-the-shelf components to create his emissions-free family hauler.

The whole lashup has a top speed of 55 mph, can carry 800 lbs of people and/or stuff, and has a range of 20-25 miles. A full charge of the battery takes 4 to 6 hours and costs an estimated $1.50 in New Jersey. Assuming a Voyager or Caravan of that vintage gets around 20 mpg, this would be considerably less expensive to operate with gas prices around $4 per gallon. Of course, the gasoline-powered variant can hold significantly more than 1 gallon of fuel and can be replenished in minutes rather than hours. But for someone who just needed to hustle the kids to school and go get some groceries something like this could be viable.

[Source: NJ.com]

There aren't too many 4WD electric jeep look-a-likes on the market and so when we first told you about the Scarlette there were some obvious questions that would eventually need to be addressed. Would they be on the receiving end of a lawsuit from Jeep? Would anyone even buy it? Why would someone call this Jeep-looking thing the Tender Scarlette? Well, so far as we know, the lawyers at Chrysler haven't sunk their fangs into the small French EV-maker yet, though looking at the losses that company is racking up, one might assume they are getting a little peckish. Sales have begun, according to the company's gros fromage (big cheese), Gérard Christaud, the Scarlette is a "go" with 30 vehicles sold and orders on hand for 350 more. Some of these tasty EV morsels have even crossed the Atlantic.

There have been some delays, as is common with new ventures though the blame here is being placed gently at the feet of suppliers rather than with their own high-tech assembly plant in the Rhone-Alpes. They had better pick up the pace soon because they have just inked a distribution deal with FESA (an association of automotive professionals) and will have a production goal of 1,000 a month. As to why they call it the "Scarlette," we can only answer, somewhat predictably, that frankly, we don't give a damn.

[Source: Avenir Du Vehicule Electrique Mediterraneen]

Move over Modec, there's a new electric vehicle coming to Britain. LDV has announced they will launch an electric version of their Maxus this summer. Owned by Gorkovsky Avtomobilny Zavod (GAZ), Russia's largest vehicle manufacturing group, LDV plans the new variant as part of a recent £10 million investment by the parent company in the Maxus line-up. According to an article in the Birmingham Post, the all-electric will be offered in both the van (pictured above) as well as the chassis-cab format with only minor changes being made to the chassis. Although the expected performance and battery type or supplier are not named, the motor is said to be "proven."

Newly appointed CEO Evgeniy Vereshchagin made the company's environmental commitment clear at the Commercial Vehicle Show where LDV has 9 different Maxus iterations on display stating, "Our responsibility as a manufacturer is look to the future and in particular the effects carbon emissions and vehicle pollutants are having on the environment as a result of the whole life of our range of light commercial vehicles". Pretty good green talking for the former audit manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers. July is not too long to wait to see if his green walking is just as good.

[Source: Birmingham Post]

The Los Angeles Times has an article taking a look at the the four most prominent California-based electric vehicle start-ups and the difficulties they face. The article touches on Phoenix Motorcars, Zap, Fisker and, of course, Tesla. A lot of what the article covers has already been discussed around these parts on numerous occasions but for those playing catchup, it's a decent primer on the difficulties of creating a new car company. Building any new car that meets modern customer expectations, regulatory requirements and is reliable and durable is an extremely daunting task. All of that needs to happen before you even think about actually making money on the whole deal, which few car companies seem to be able to do. The technical issues of integrating all the powertrain electronics, safety, body and entertainment systems is extremely costly and time consuming but must be done if you expect people to actually big bucks for an electrically-driven car. If you don't accomplish all of that, you may sell a few cars to rich early adopters and enthusiasts, but you won't have a sustainable business. One correction to the article: the author states that Tesla plans to build 1,000 cars this year, that number is closer to 600 and even that may prove to be a stretch.

[Source: Los Angeles Times]

Click above for a high-res gallery of the Mitsuibshi i MiEV (22 photos)

I drive a Ford Mustang GT; I'm Autoblog's resident HUMMER aficionado; and I think my favorite car in New York this year is a Japanese-market all-electric kei car. What is going on?

My dirty little secret (if you could even call it that) is that I'm also very much into kei cars. Often endearingly wacky-looking, the little city cars are packaging marvels, boasting roomy interiors despite their compact footprints -- and I love them. This year, the New York Auto Show is home to keis (the Mitsubishi i and Subaru R1e) as well as another JDM favorite, the Nissan Cube. What's interesting is that each one is on display as an all-electric vehicle. What was especially interesting to me is that Mitsubishi's electric i MiEV (it's pronounced "eye-meev", incidentally) was actually available for journalists to drive. So I drove it. Read on and watch video after the jump.



All "live" photos Copyright © 2008 Alex Núñez / Weblogs, Inc.

There was a big push for electric cars in the '70s because of energy concerns. There was another big push in the '90s because of a California law. The two videos below the fold are of the two iconic cars from those bygone decades: First, the triangle on wheels, aka the CitiCar City Car. In a 1974 video, we get a look at the batteries, which were located directly under the seat. Second, is a video from 1990 all about the GM Impact (later renamed the EV1). The Impact videos tells the story of how Paul inspired GM to make the car. Hopefully, 10 and 30 years from today, we'll have more than old videos of the current crop of electric cars, and those that should be coming out very soon.

[Source: YouTube]

Recently, we wrote that Tesla's director of communications enjoyed crashing the company car in Project Gotham Racing 4. How about a taste of the real thing? Below the fold is a video from Gadgetoff 2007 of co-founder and ex-CEO of Tesla, Martin Eberhard, showing crash tests of the Tesla electric sports car. At the beginning of the video, Martin says these videos are the difference between Tesla and companies that make a "three wheel imaginary car that would never be safe on the highway." Could Martin be talking about Zap?

So how much does all this fun footage cost? Martin says the cars cost $350,000 to build and the tests cost another $100,000. The Tesla sells for $100,000 but the cars in the crash tests have equipment added to measure the damage done to the crash test dummies. Martin says Tesla has done about 8 tests; So the video is about a million dollars a minute, give or take a million. These are, of course, hand picked videos done by Tesla but the car looks amazingly safe. Air bags are "freaking amazing" as Martin points out.

[Source: YouTube]

The product of the Zap-Lotus agreement, the Zap-X, a normal looking, electric, four door sedan, just might be "months" away from mass production. China.org.cn is reporting China's Youngman Automotive Group, the guys making the car for Zap, said they could deliver a test car to Zap by the end of this year and after testing by Zap, the sedan could go into mass production as little as two months later. Here is the quote:

"The sample vehicles will be finished at the end of this year or next January. Two or three months after testing, the electric-powered sedan under the Lotus brand will be the first to go into mass production."

Zap has not announced a release date (surprise!) but if things go as Youngman hopes, the Zap-APX could have a release date of Summer 2008; the earliest release date that we know of for any of the new, normal electric cars like the Miles Javlon. While a summer release date would give Zap the honor of being first to market with a normal electric car, the price and range are the more complicated issues. They have not given a price and the range is said to be 350 miles.

Whatever the release, price and range, the Zap-X looks like it will be an amazing car, should it ever be more than vaporware: in-wheel electric motors by PML FlightLink, a top speed of 155 mph, and 0 to 60 MPH in 4.8 seconds. While, I don't think anyone expects all of that to remain true, for an affordable car anyway, I am glad to hear that things are at least currently on track on Youngman's end for the Zap-APX. AutoblogGreen remains skeptical, as you know.



[Source: China.org.cn and tipster Domenick]

The Chinese car maker, BYD Automobile Co Ltd, plans to mass produce a hybrid gas-electric car the second half of next year. BYD showed a full electric car, the F3e, a car based on its F3 sedans, at last year's Beijing auto show. I assume BYD's planned hybrid is based on the F3 sedan as well. The battery for BYD's hybrid and electric car are iron based, which BYD says is better than lithium-ion batteries.

"The iron battery proves to have better safety performance and larger capacity. The cost could also be lowered by using abundant resources and affordable raw materials," says BYD in an e-mail. BYD's first car, the F3 sedan, started production in 2005 and sold 51,000 units in 2005. In 2006, BYD sold 60,000 F3s and they expect to sell 100,000 this year.

The Chinese government is really encouraging its carmakers to develop clean cars. Do you think China could take the lead from American and European car makers on hybrids? What about the Japanese?

Related:

• Chinese electric Smart Clone coming to the US market?
• Chinese electric cars go for Miles
• Electric car plant under construction in China
• Chinese academy develops big electric motors - 50,000 electric cars might come soon

[Source: Shanghai Daily]

V2Green, a Seattle start up, is writing software for power companies to manage the charging of electric cars. There are not that many electric cars right now but V2Green thinks there will be between 500,000 and 1.5M by the year 2015 from companies like Tesla and Chevrolet. V2Green is currently generating revenue from a number of tests and will announce a deal with a utility later this month. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer interviewed the CEO and co-founder of V2Green, David Kaplan, about the need for and potential future of smart charing. Here are some quotes from that interview:

"The driver may simply come home, plug the car in at 6 p.m. and you just need it to have a full charge by 8 a.m. the next day ... That's a 14 hour window in which we can decide to get you an amount of electricity that may only take three, four or five hours to deliver. Our system can juggle that sort of calculation across thousands and thousands of cars to create a smooth load profile for the grid operator, so they are not experiencing power spikes or having to bring on back up sources of generation."

"I am doing this because it is a business. There is money to be made here ... It is a longer-term build business than something like a typical technology business, no question about that. But when this market kicks in, it is going to be a very significant hockey stick."

A hockey stick? OK. Now, what do you think of Kaplan's comments?

[Source: Seattle PI]

It's kind of a joke to say Wal-Mart sells everything. Does Wal-Mart sell electric cars? Well, this Christmas... they do sell electric cars! Sam's Club, a unit of Wal-Mart stores Inc, will sell an electric car in a Christmas promotion November 8 through December 29. The car is the Mercedes-Benz Smart and it's actually on Sam's Club front page right now below a pre-order of Guitar Hero.

For the low, low price of $35,000 you also get lithium-ion batteries from Hybrid Technologies, bringing the car's range to over 100 miles per charge. That bouncy, yellow, happy face is not done with you yet: Along with being the only owner of the Hybrid Technology's Smart, you also get a trip to the Kennedy Space Center! The Sam's Club site says this is a Once-in-a-Lifetime offer "you won't get a second chance at."

[Source: Wall Street Journal (Subscription Required)]