Battery EV Comeback? | Green Energy News

May 4, 2003 – Vol.8 No.6

BATTERY EV COMEBACK?

A brief history lesson covering the last few years of electric vehicle development... Battery electric vehicle development progressed in the 1990’s to the point where superb cars like General Motors EV-1 and Toyota’s RAV-4 EV were built. Then battery electric vehicle development pretty much came to halt when interest shifted to hybrid-electric vehicles and of course hydrogen fuel cell vehicles for the future. That’s it in a nutshell.

Yet there is the possibility that history may change. Plug-in-to-reenergize battery electric vehicles could have a bit of a rebirth.

Case in point: a Canadian company called Electrovaya has developed an electric vehicle powered with its proprietary Lithium Ion SuperPolymer (tm) battery which is available to consumers as a long run-time battery for laptop computers. The EV known as the Maya 100 is a full featured Sport Utility Vehicle based on a Chevy Tracker/Suzuki Vitara. With 2 and 4 wheel drive available, the Maya, with its 35 kilowatt hour battery pack, is expected to have a range of 120-160 miles.

We’ll know the exact range figure soon enough. The Maya 100 is entered in the NESEA Tour de Sol which ends on May 14 at the foot of the Capital in Washington, DC.

Electrovaya thinks its technology is actually superior to fuel cell technology, could be commercialized quicker and vehicles would cost less. Visit Electrovaya at http://www.electrovaya.com/ NESEA at http://www.nesea.org/ .