Hybrid Car Renault Bets on Electric Vehicles

Can the most fuel-efficient vehicles in mass production - powerful Hybrid Car like the Toyota Prius, which can run on gasoline or electricity - already earmarked for a science museum? This is the argument that the French car manufacturer Renault has done at the Mondial de l'Automobile, the giant auto racing shows in Paris this week. Renault said that the genius of a pair of battery electric vehicles (EVS), to be produced from 2011, according to which it is cheaper to build, cost a lot less power and produce far less carbon dioxide.

Renault's vision of electric cars are small vehicles principally designed for the shuttle. A Paris show, Renault unveiled a concept car with the design of a compact car EV common: a version of its Kangoo EV usefulness of having a sour green surprising windows to minimize air conditioning and a lithium ion battery of the 160 to 200 km an average. This range really covers the use of our customers who use their cars for transport on short journeys, for example, during the weekend, "said project director Serge Yoccoz Renault EV. As a result, he predicted that such electric vehicles can capture 10 to 15 percent of the European car market since 2015. (Hybrid Car currently command 2 percent of car sales in the world.)

Renault is not the first to test the market for battery electric vehicles. Mitsubishi Motors announced last week in Paris will begin testing the i-MiEV mini in Europe next month for commercial sale in 2010. Daimler, meanwhile, said that the battery version of its popular Smart fortwo, testing in London since last year, will be sold from the end of 2009.

Renault says that electric vehicles are a necessity because Hybrid Car can not offer the level of fuel consumption and emissions reductions that governments and customers demand for motor vehicles. The EV is the breakthrough needed because, according to Renault, driving the EV Kangoo in Paris generates zero carbon dioxide when charged with renewable energy, and not more than 60 grams per kilometer will be charged when Today, coal-heavy electricity, the rate of France, emissions of carbon dioxide would be somewhere between that nuclear supplies 80 percent of the electricity in France. None of these scenarios, and compares with the more than 130 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer from the exhaust pipe of Renault Kangoos diesel, which are relatively efficient in their class.

Lithium batteries for Renault the first round of products, at least from a joint venture of Nissan in Japan, which Renault is a partner for the development of EV technology, and NEC. The new lithium technologies have overshadowed the performance of the joint venture on the basis of manganese lithium-ion chemistry, but says that the Yoccoz Nissan-NEC is one of the least expensive.

Renault is that, finally, the relative simplicity of the battery electric vehicles should pay less than the plug-in Hybrid Car, such as General Motors Chevrolet Volt, a vehicle GM plans to launch in 2010 a few parts of the scope of battery be charged overnight with a gasoline engine generator to the vehicle on longer journeys. "Two engines in a car ... More complicated, expensive," says Yoccoz. "Even taking into account the cost of infrastructure, the electric car is always a better proposal from one of opinion."

But the decline of the Renault plan is the vehicle range. "We are not talking about holidays," said Yoccoz. Frank Weber, GM's global vehicle to the Chevy Volt - a Hybrid Car of the few full screen in Paris - which has a fall: "You would not exactly in this area, where you say:" Here is purpose-built small car. "

Weber expects that most drivers do not go very far in a day, they are still waiting for more than one car. He said that EVs with a limited range will remain a niche market, and therefore will never reach the scale needed to lower costs - all the more important when it is more expensive lithium-ion batteries. "Electric cars are not a good choice," said Weber.

Yoccoz said that is precisely the reason why car manufacturers to discuss electric vehicles, Renault, Mitsubishi and Mercedes, are also working to catalyze the installation cost of drives today. Renault is working with Project Better Place, based in Palo Alto, CA, to install units costs stations in Denmark and Israel, where the company its first EV, the Kangoo and an EV version of a new sedan called the fluence focused on the Israeli market. Daimler, meanwhile, has partnered with German RWE, last month, the utility to install 500 units cost EV points in Berlin, where the auto maker will set up more than 100 of its Smart EV Fortwos. And this week, Paris has said that 4000 would be electric vehicles on the streets in 2010 by a car Velib, the popular bike rental program.

Help the development of infrastructure and pricing policy that pushes governments to promote the development of ultra-clean vehicles Yoccoz demand that its second and third jobs. "With our usual, the main task is to find customers, identify what their needs are and then a product to meet their needs," he said. "What we should do at the top of the electric vehicle to redefine the business model."