With atmospheric pollution looming large as a major issue for urban areas in the 1990s, pressure is growing to develop vehicles that are no longer powered by internal combustion engines. Electric vehicles are the leading contender, and the battery that powers these vehicles is the linchpin in developing an electric-powered transportation industry. As a result, the electric battery has emerged as a key research and development target for this decade. To be successful, electric vehicles (EVs) must compete with today's high-performance gasoline-burning vehicles, which can accelerate rapidly, sustain a highway cruising speed for several hours, and refuel in minutes. For EVs, that means the electricity in the battery must be available on demand and have a high current flow for rapid acceleration, a sustained current flow for cruising, and a high reverse current flow for rapid recharging. The battery also must be capable of being recharged many times and must have a low weight, small size, and low cost.
Combining all of these characteristics into one battery is still a dream. Even after 25 years of research by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and 15 years of work by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), in Palo Alto, California, none of the high-performance batteries now under development has reached the commercial stage, and no electric vehicle today can match the all-around performance of vehicles that use internal combustion engines.
Impetus for EVs
The move to EVs is driven by regulations adopted in 1990 by the California Air Resources Board. These regulations mandate that by 1998, 2 percent of the vehicles available for sale in California by large-volume manufacturers (Ford, Chrysler General Motors, Nissan, Toyota, Mazda, and Honda) must be zero-emission vehicles. The percentage will increase to 5 percent in 2001 and 10 percent in 2003. Now other states--particularly in the Northeast--are adopting similar regulations. "This is a trend for the U.S.," according to Larry Hart, a DOE spokesman.
Although EVs have been on the road since the late nineteenth century when the first automobiles were made, their numbers have always been small, primarily because they were no match for the gasoline-powered auto. The EVs' limitations, which are imposed primarily by the battery's limitations, have included high cost, slow acceleration, and limited driving range. Making EVs competitive with gasoline-powered cars requires overcoming all of these limits as well as others.
The EV is so attractive in concept that the major manufacturers in the United States--Ford, GM, and Chrysler--have each been working with EV development for several
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