Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Electric Cars II

In yesterday's post we highlighted three articles to make the point that this is happening right now.
Here's a couple more:

GM Hopes for Family of Electric Vehicles
As the U.S. Congress prepares to tackle proposals to raise fuel-efficiency targets, General Motors Corp. turned up the juice on its efforts to convince lawmakers and consumers that it needs no prodding to engineer advanced green vehicles.

GM Vice Chairman Robert Lutz said yesterday that the company hopes to launch a family of electric vehicles that would share many parts with GM's mainstream models. GM still needs suppliers to develop the batteries required for electric vehicles, and it isn't yet certain the suppliers will come through. GM already is mapping out plans to produce a wide range of electric models beyond the Chevrolet Volt, which it has vowed to launch in three years or so....MORE from the Wall Street Journal Online


And from Ener1 Battery Company comes this press release:

Ener1, Inc.(OTC Bulletin Board: ENEI) today announced that it has signed
a technology license agreement with ITOCHU Corporation that will
grant Ener1 an exclusive world-wide license to certain "know-how" developed
by EnerStruct and a certain patent and patent applications of EnerStruct
and ITOCHUregarding lithium ion battery technology.

EnerStruct, a joint venturebetween Ener1 and ITOCHU, has successfully completed
the development of lithium ion materials and manufacturing processes which are now
in use in EnerDel's battery operations.



HT: Green Car Congress who note:

Ener1, Inc. is developing 1) lithium ion batteries for hybrid
electric vehicles (HEV) at its 80.5% owned EnerDel subsidiary,
2) commercial fuel cell products through its EnerFuel subsidiary,
and 3)nanotechnology-based materials and manufacturing processes
for batteries and other applications at its NanoEner subsidiary.

EnerDel has developed its own lithium titanate (titanium oxide) anode material in
collaboration with Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) for HEV applications. The
company has also developed a hard carbon anode lithium-ion battery that it will
target at plug-in hybrid (PHEV) and battery electric vehicle (BEV) applications.
For the cathode, EnerDel uses manganese spinel (LiMn2O4). EnerDel uses a flat
prismatic cell design.