3000 electric cars to be available for business use by 2012

There have been plenty of talks about electric vehicle. But until today scientists and car makers couldn’t create the model that could meet consumer’s demand.

Photo: 3000 electric cars to be available for business use by 2012

Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and Fuji Heavy Industries, the maker of Subarus, unveiled a prototype an electric vehicle that they have been developing together since last year.

TEPCO says that it will use 3,000 of these cars for business use by fiscal 2012.

The electric vehicle is based on Fuji Heavy’s Subaru R1 minicar and features a high-performance manganese lithium-ion battery developed with NEC Corp. It can run about 80km on a single charge with a top speed of 100 km/h (62 mph), according to the developers. A 346V battery pack powers the 40kW drive motor, and can recharge to 80% capacity in 15 minutes.

The manganese Li-ion cells use lithium manganese oxide spinel (LiMn₂O₄) as the cathode active material. The crystalline spinel structure makes the battery resistant to overcharging and provides high thermal stability, according to NEC/Tokin.

TEPCO will start testing 40 of these cars to evaluate such capabilities as recharge times and the distances they can travel without recharging. If these trials go well, it will replace 500 business-use vehicles with the new electric cars each year starting next fiscal year.

By fiscal 2012, Tepco will have switched 3,000 of its business-use vehicles, or almost 40% of the total, to the electric vehicles. Fuji Heavy hopes to put the vehicles into commercial production by as early as 2009.

What advantages do electric vichle (EV) offer?

1. EVs produce zero emissions at the point of use.

2. An electric motor is 400% to 600% more efficient than an internal combus tion engine.

3. An EV, per mile, uses one-half the fossil-fuel resources an ICE consumes.

4. An EV produces only 5% to 10% of the emissions of an ICE per mile traveled.

5. EVs can use electricity from anywhere including sustainable energy resources (wind and sun).

6. EVs are simple, silent, and affordable to operate.

Source: agencies

Prepared by Alexander Timoshik
Pravda.ru

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