Electric Cars Update

Electric car for the masses to be made in Southern California By Ken Bensinger, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer April 22, 2008

"Norwegian automaker Think Global said Monday it planned to sell low-priced electric cars to the masses and will introduce its first models in the U.S. by the end of next year. The battery-powered Think City will be able to travel up to 110 miles on a single charge, with a top speed of about 65 mph, the company said. It will be priced below $25,000."

New York 2008: 2010 Nissan Cube and Denki Cube
Posted Mar 19th 2008 2:22PM by Sam Abuelsamid autoblog

"In New York, Nissan will unveil a battery-powered concept car that hints at the vehicle's future styling and technology. The production vehicle will have a daily range of 100 miles, with an estimated top speed of 75 mph. A complete recharge will take about eight hours."

Nissan: Electric car to get here in 2010 By Rick Kranz and David Sedgwick, AutomotiveWeek
"Nissan is moving full speed ahead with plans to introduce a pure electric car in 2010 for fleet customers in Japan and the United States. After testing its vehicle with fleet customers, Nissan will market the electric car worldwide in 2012 to retail customers. The car will be powered by lithium ion batteries developed in Nissan's joint venture with NEC Corp."

GM Volt
“General Motors said it will have the Volt on the market in 2010.The vehicle is designed to run purely on electricity from on-board batteries for up to 40 miles (64 km, a large enough distance to cover the daily commutes of most Americans, which is around 33 miles (53 km).[5] With use of a small internal combustion engine, 1.0L turbo 3-cylinder for 53kW generator, driving a generator to resupply the batteries, the vehicle's range is potentially increased to 640 miles (1,030 km) on the highway "

GM Volt specs. http://gm-volt.com/full-specifications/
Volt costs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Volt
Rumored to be about $30,000 which seems way too high. Needs to be about half that price for it to be considered a viable alternative for the average person in today's economy which is projected to only get worse in the coming years.

The Texas based company EEEStor announces new milestones in the production process of high density energy storage devices using ultra capacitor architecture at their manufacturing facility. The license to use these devices was purchased by a Canadian electric car manufacturer Zenn Motor Company. The capabilities of these new devices portend the demise of internal combustion engines in personal transportation vehicles.

The theory behind the idea of ultra capacitors as storage devices is not new, researchers have been studying the idea for over 20 years. Skeptics to this announcement abound, their concerns being the viabilities of the commercial manufacturing process and the use of the devices under real life conditions. The many patents applied to and awarded to EEStor reportedly address these questions.

These new ultra capacitor devices outperform existing battery technology and promise to supplant batteries as primary energy source devices in electric cars. The big advantages of ultra capacitors over batteries are their ability to store and release more energy in much shorter times. Re-charge time is reduced from hours to minutes and energy can be released in quick bursts, more like internal combustion engines when the gas pedal is pressed.

The theory has been there but practical manufacturing process has been the big obstacle. These latest advances, long considered the holy grail of storage technology, should make electric cars totally viable. Vehicle range will extend to hundreds of miles per few minutes of charge time using ordinary 110 volt AC receptacles.

What makes this breakthrough announcement serious is that the venture capital group backing EEEStor is Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, who made the early bets on startups Google and Amazon when skeptics abounded.