*LIFE AND DEATH OF THE ELECTRIC CAR- 2010 ?PRE PLAN THE HIGH COST OF THE BATTERY NOW!!!

vehicles,Cit “It’s our punishment for inventing this stuff and allowing manufacturing to go somewhere else,”

Chevy Volt is designed to move more than 75 percent of America’s daily commuters without a single drop of gas.(1) That means for someone who drives less than 40 miles a day, Chevy Volt will use zero gasoline and produce zero emissions.(2)Unlike traditional electric cars, Chevy Volt has a revolutionary propulsion system that takes you beyond the power of the battery. It will use a lithium-ion battery with a variety of range-extending onboard power sources, including gas and, in some vehicles, E85 ethanol(3) to recharge the battery while you drive beyond the 40-mile battery range. And when it comes to being plugged in, Chevy Volt will be designed to use a common household plug.

Chevy Volt. Fully Charged 2010.

http://www.chevrolet.com/electriccar/

TIME LINE OF THE ELECTRIC CAR

1832-1839
Scottish inventor Robert Anderson invents the first crude electric carriage powered by non-rechargeable primary cells.

1835
American Thomas Davenport is credited with building the first practical electric vehicle — a small locomotive.

1859
French physicist Gaston Planté invents the rechargeable lead-acid storage battery. In 1881, his countryman Camille Faure will improve the storage battery’s ability to supply current and invent the basic lead-acid battery used in automobiles.

1891
William Morrison of Des Moines, Iowa builds the first successful electric automobile in the United States.
1893
A handful of different makes and models of electric cars are exhibited in Chicago.

1897
The first electric taxis hit the streets of New York City early in the year. The Pope Manufacturing Company of Connecticut becomes the first large-scale American electric automobile manufacturer.

1899
Believing that electricity will run autos in the future, Thomas Alva Edison begins his mission to create a long-lasting, powerful battery for commercial automobiles. Though his research yields some improvements to the alkaline battery, he ultimately abandons his quest a decade later.

1900
The electric automobile is in its heyday. Of the 4,192 cars produced in the United States 28 percent are powered by electricity, and electric autos represent about one-third of all cars found on the roads of New York City, Boston, and Chicago.
1908
Henry Ford introduces the mass-produced and gasoline-powered Model T, which will have a profound effect on the U.S. automobile market.

1912
Charles Kettering invents the first practical electric automobile starter. Kettering’s invention makes gasoline-powered autos more alluring to consumers by eliminating the unwieldy hand crank starter and ultimately helps pave the way for the electric car’s demise.

1920
During the 1920s the electric car ceases to be a viable commercial product. The electric car’s downfall is attributable to a number of factors, including the desire for longer distance vehicles, their lack of horsepower, and the ready availability of gasoline.

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The start of the first track race held in the U.S. in 1896. A Riker electric finished first. Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian.

–>1966
Congress introduces the earliest bills recommending use of electric vehicles as a means of reducing air pollution. A Gallup poll indicates that 33 million Americans are interested in electric vehicles.

1970s
Concerns about the soaring price of oil — peaking with the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973 — and a growing environmental movement result in renewed interests in electric cars from both consumers and producers.

1972
Victor Wouk, the “Godfather of the Hybrid,” builds the first full-powered, full-size hybrid vehicle out of a 1972 Buick Skylark provided by General Motors (G.M.) for the 1970 Federal Clean Car Incentive Program. The Environmental Protection Association later kills the program in 19761974
Vanguard-Sebring’s CitiCar makes its debut at the Electric Vehicle Symposium in Washington, D.C. The CitiCar has a top speed of over 30 mph and a reliable warm-weather range of 40 miles. By 1975 the company is the sixth largest automaker in the U.S. but is dissolved only a few years later.

1975
The U.S. Postal Service purchases 350 electric delivery jeeps from AM General, a division of AMC, to be used in a test program.

1976
Congress passes the Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Research, Development, and Demonstration Act. The law is intended to spur the development of new technologies including improved batteries, motors, and other hybrid-electric components.

1988
Roger Smith, CEO of G.M. , agrees to fund research efforts to build a practical consumer electric car. G.M. teams up with California’s AeroVironment to design what would become the EV1, which one employee called “the world’s most efficient production vehicle.” Some electric vehicle enthusiasts have speculated that the EV1 was never undertaken as a serious commercial venture by the large automaker.

1990
California passes its Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Mandate, which requires two percent of the state’s vehicles to have no emissions by 1998 and 10 percent by 2003. The law is repeatedly weakened over the next decade to reduce the number of pure ZEVs it requires.

1997
Toyota unveils the Prius — the world’s first commercially mass-produced and marketed hybrid car — in Japan. Nearly 18,000 units are sold during the first production year.

1997 – 2000
A few thousand all-electric cars (such as Honda’s EV Plus, G.M.’s EV1, Ford’s Ranger pickup EV, Nissan’s Altra EV, Chevy’s S-10 EV, and Toyota’s RAV4 EV) are produced by big car manufacturers, but most of them are available for lease only. All of the major automakers’ advanced all-electric production programs will be discontinued by the early 2000s.

2002
G.M. and DaimlerChrysler sue the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to repeal the ZEV mandate first passed in 1990. The Bush Administration joins that suit

2003
G.M. announces that it will not renew leases on its EV1 cars saying it can no longer supply parts to repair the vehicles and that it plans to reclaim the cars by the end of 2004.

2005
On February 16, electric vehicle enthusiasts begin a “Don’t Crush” vigil to stop G.M. from demolishing 78 impounded EV1s in Burbank, California. The vigil ends twenty-eight days later when G.M. removes the cars from the facility. In the film “Who Killed the Electric Car” G.M. spokesman Dave Barthmuss states that the EV1s are to be recycled, not just crushed.

2006
A few pure electric cars and plug-in hybrids are in limited production and new ones are on the horizon. Experts differ on how soon rising oil prices, peak oil forecasts, changing fortunes at car companies, and public demand for cars that run without gasoline will resurrect the mass market for electric car in the twenty-first century. The success of the gasoline hybrid Toyota Prius is a promising sign.
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/223/electric-car-timeline.html
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PRE PLAN THE HIGH COST OF ENERGY RIGHT NOW!!!
U.S. Auto Makers Target
Battery Gap With Japan

The lengthening lead Japan’s auto makers hold in securing supplies of advanced batteries to power the next generation of automobiles has become a rallying point for the U.S. auto industry in seeking at least $25 billion in government loans.

Over the past decade, Japan’s auto giants have been teaming up with its electronics companies, which have dominated global battery manufacturing for laptop computers, mobile phones and other products. Most Japanese battery makers — even those allied with Japanese auto makers — say they are willing to supply other car makers.

But securing an adequate supply of batteries over the next few years has become a growing concern for auto makers everywhere. The U.S. industry is leery of depending too heavily on foreign battery makers allied with Japanese auto makers, for fear those suppliers would give priority to filling the orders of their Japanese partners.

Over the past several months, a number of Japan’s auto makers and its top battery makers have reached new agreements to work together on vehicle batteries. At least five battery factories are under construction in Japan, including a $115 million facility announced in May by Nissan Motor Co. and electronics giant NEC Corp.

The flurry of deals promises to put U.S. auto makers even further behind their Japanese rivals in manufacturing capacity and technological know-how on the battery front, analysts say.

On Friday, U.S. auto-industry leaders pressed American lawmakers for federal loans to develop homegrown technology for more fuel-efficient vehicles, such as hybrids, plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles.

General Motors Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner, appearing on Capitol Hill, called on Congress to support advanced-battery development in the U.S., which he said lags far behind the government-supported development efforts in Japan and South Korea.

The market for advanced automotive batteries is expected to grow to between $30 billion and $40 billion a year by 2020, compared with today’s $900 million market for hybrid batteries, according to Deutsche Bank Securities Inc.

Detroit executives say that by helping to narrow the battery-development gap, a federal-loan package would further the goal of U.S. energy security in addition to aiding the country’s auto industry. The executives argue that failure to develop a competitive battery industry domestically could create a new energy dependency for the U.S. by making it reliant on foreign-made batteries, even as it seeks to reduce its dependence on imported oil.

“Moving from imported oil to imported batteries” wouldn’t address the nation’s energy-security concerns, said Mark Fields, head of Ford Motor Co. operations in the Americas, speaking recently in Washington. “Bold and dramatic incentives are needed to accelerate the commercial development of high-energy power batteries right here in the U.S.”

Higher oil prices have pushed consumers to hybrids at a much faster pace than almost anyone had imagined, accelerating car makers’ need for access to good batteries. Even Toyota Motor Corp., which has the largest supply, encountered a shortage this year of the batteries used to power the electric motor in its popular Prius gasoline-electric hybrid. As a result, it was forced to put some customers on three-month-long waiting lists for the Prius.

For now, some U.S. auto makers are seeking supplies from Japanese battery makers. GM recently announced plans to buy lithium-ion batteries for 100,000 hybrids from Japan’s Hitachi Ltd. Sanyo Electric Co. supplies batteries for Ford hybrids.

But Japanese companies continue to invest in their own facilities. Nissan and partner NEC announced in May that they will build a factory that has capacity to make 65,000 lithium-ion batteries a year by 2011, as the car maker aims to become the world’s largest producer of electric vehicles.

In July, Toyota opened a battery-research center, which it plans to double in size in the next two years to include 100 scientists and support staff, to develop a supercharged battery more powerful than those now on the market. A slew of smaller companies are ramping up production of cathodes, electrodes and other essential battery-making materials.

Unlike the U.S., Japan has made energy savings a top priority for years. While Detroit has focused on highly profitable large trucks and sport-utility vehicles in recent years, Japanese auto makers have continued to concentrate on smaller, fuel-sipping vehicles, including hybrids

Toyota and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. formed a joint venture in 1996 called Panasonic EV Energy to produce batteries for Toyota hybrids. With two plants running and a third under construction, the venture aims to produce enough nickel-metal-hydride batteries to power one million hybrid vehicles a year soon after 2010, more than double its plans for this year.

In addition, the company plans to start making lithium-ion batteries, a more-powerful kind of battery that will be used in Toyota’s plug-in hybrids scheduled for release late next year.

Panasonic EV Energy runs what is currently Japan’s most-advanced battery-making facility. Rising above the rice fields and rows of greenhouses in the farming town of Kosai in central Japan, the factory operates around the clock.

Japan’s GS Yuasa, a Kyoto battery maker that has teamed up with Mitsubishi Motors Corp. and Mitsubishi Corp. to make lithium-ion batteries, has been honing its battery-making expertise for two decades, creating batteries for a wide range of uses, including satellites, submarines and power tools.

The company’s production facility is a warren of sealed, air-tight rooms. Employees wear face masks, and the floors are lined with sticky mats to collect dust and other particles that could ruin a battery’s performance. “Mass production of batteries is very difficult,” says Ken Sawai, a manager at GS Yuasa. “There are many secrets.”

And there is ample opportunity for developers of better batteries. “Whoever can make a safe, long-life and low-cost battery will be the winner,” says Khalil Amine, a battery researcher at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory.

Those trying to do that include start-ups like A123 Systems Inc., a small company founded by a group of scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A123 is a contender for the battery design that will power GM’s planned Chevrolet Volt.

Another battery player in the U.S. is Johnson Controls Inc., which last month was awarded an $8.2 million contract by the U.S. Department of Energy to develop lithium-ion batteries for plug-in hybrid vehicles. The company also will provide lithium-ion batteries for the Mercedes-Benz S-Class hybrid vehicle, scheduled to be on the market in early 2009.

But much more needs to be done, says Mary Ann Wright, vice president and general manager for Johnson Controls’ hybrid-battery business. She has been lobbying Washington for a national effort to establish research labs and manufacturing technology to make the U.S. a battery-manufacturing leader.

It would be more of rebirth of an industry than one started from scratch. Key components needed in hybrid and electric vehicles — including the battery, electric motor and specialized electronics — were originally developed in the U.S., Ms. Wright says. Now nearly all of them come from Asia.

“It’s our punishment for inventing this stuff and allowing manufacturing to go somewhere else,” she says.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122142930024933801.html?mod=googlenews_wsj