Some Recently Available Electric Cars

So you live in California, you’re after an electric car, what are your options? Listed below are some of the cars recently put forward by manufacturers to satisfy the Californian state requirements for zero emission vehicles:

Car:	Range:	Battery:	Wh/kg:	Notes:
Solectria Sunrise	200 miles	NiMH	65 Wh/kg	A practical 4 seater car capable of over 300 miles per charge under the right conditions. Not going into production as composite construction is currently too expensive. More…
GM EV-1 II	140 miles	NiMH	51 Wh/kg	Was leased to the Californian public for a while, but GM axed the project citing lack of consumer demand. With todays 200Wh/kg batteries would have a range of almost 550 miles! More…
Nissan Altra	120 miles	Li-ion	90 Wh/kg	As practical as any other estate car. First incorporation of a Li-ion pack into an electric vehicle. In production. More…
Toyota RAV4 EV	100 miles	NiMH	65 Wh/kg	Also very practical and currently available in California. They openly admit that the current problem holding back development of electric vehicles is the cost of the battery pack. More…
Ford E-Ka	93 miles	Li-ion	126Wh/kg	This Ford test bed is faster than the standard Ka. Good batteries but dismal energy efficiency (only 2.6 miles per kWhr). With efficiency improvements, should have a useful range of over 200 miles. More…
Peugeot 106 electric	50 miles	NiCd	50Wh/kg	As rare as hens teeth, but these cars CAN be found (and bought) in the UK. Shame about the poverty spec batteries (and resultant range). More…
Ford Th!nk	50 miles	NiCd	48 Wh/kg	Anyone get the impression Ford are somehow sand bagging in their efforts to escape fossil fuels? Hmmm… This car is being trialled in London and Edinburgh right now, but ridiculous choice of batteries has resulted in pathetic range of only 50 miles. This was acceptable ten years ago – not any more. Please put the Ka battery in…. More…

As you can see the only problem with these cars is the fairly dismal capacity of their batteries. So the question I wanted to ask was – How far could these cars go on one charge if fitted with ElectroVayas 200Wh/kg batteries?Well doing the sums, it seems this far!

Car type:	Range on original batteries:	If fitted with current 200Whr/kg batteries:	(300Whr/kg batteries of near future):
Solectria Sunrise	200 miles	615 miles	(922 miles)
GM EV-1 II	140 miles	549 miles	(823 miles)
Nissan Altra	120 miles	267 miles	(400 miles)
Toyota RAV4 EV	100 miles	308 miles	(463 miles)
Ford E-Ka	93 miles	148 miles	(220 miles)
Peugeot 106 EV	50 miles	200 miles	(300 miles)
Ford Th!nk	50 miles	208 miles	(312 miles)

Of most interest here I think are the Nissan Altra and Toyota RAV4, simply because of the combination of practicality and range. These two cars are based on traditional manufacturing techniques and as such are real world cars that could be put into production tomorrow (all depending on battery costs!). However, the exceptional ranges of the Impact and the Sunrise show that with improvements in energy efficiency, (using the modern materials and design techniques discussed here), electric cars can be made to have a longer range even than their petrol powered counterparts! (And if anyone ever created a mass produced 300 Wh/kg battery, well, we might as well just mothball all those petrol forecourts….)So as I stated when I started out with all this: it’s all just down to the batteries now. Every other engineering challenge has been solved. The only remaining problem is finding a way to mass produce lithium polymer battery packs at a price we can all afford.Can this ever be achieved? Well as a final analogy, just imagine how much you would have had to pay if you’d asked for the computing power of a Playstation-II only five years ago – and now look how much it costs….

GMs EV

http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/ecotech/ecars2.htm