Tiny Electric Cars Are Coming If batteries aren't up to the job, why not make smaller cars?
Monday, March 02, 2009
By Peter Fairley
Prototype i-MiEV on show at this week's Geneva car confab. Sketch:
Mitsubishi
French automaker PSA Peugeot Citroën kicked off the Geneva Motor Show this
morning by announcing that it is pursuing a deal with Mitsubishi Motor to
develop a compact electric car for sale in Europe next year. It will be based
on Mitsubishi's i-MiEV, an approximately 160-kilometer-range commuter car that
the company plans to roll out in Japan this summer.
Plenty more compact four-wheelers are in the automotive pipeline. Daimler will
sell a battery version of its popular Smart Fortwo next year, and Volkswagen is
engineering a commuter EV called the Audi Up! with a top speed of 130
kilometers per hour and roughly 100 kilometers of range. Renault is engineering
a pair of battery-powered cars, to be produced starting in 2011.
These automakers are betting that there will be a market for smaller electric
vehicles (EVs) that will be cheaper to build and far cheaper and cleaner to
operate than regular hybrids. With battery technology developing rapidly and
the automotive market in turmoil, that logic even has gas-electric hybrid
champion Toyota hedging its bets. At the Detroit auto show in January, Toyota
put the spotlight on new versions of its Prius, but also announced plans to
offer a commuter EV in 2012.
To be fair, most of the companies talking up tiny EVs are similarly hedging
their bets, simultaneously developing a range of hybrid options. PSA Peugeot
Citroën plans to launch two diesel-hybrid vehicles in 2011--the Citroën DS5
HYbrid4 and the Peugeot 3008 HYbrid4--and it's also developing a "multipurpose"
plug-in hybrid EV analogous to the Chevy Volt.
Like the Volt, PSA's plug-in will be a series hybrid, in which a small
fuel-efficient engine serves only to recharge the batteries en route. Unlike
the Volt, however, the engine can be swapped out and additional batteries
swapped in for longer-range city driving.
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/energy/23041/?nlid=1823
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