Business Week - Envia is backed by General Motors. They are working on batteries that could power an electric car 100 or even 200 miles on a single charge in the next two-to-four years, GM's CEO said Thursday.
GM is sure that the battery will be able to take a car 100 miles within a couple of years, he said. It could be double that with some luck, he said.
"I think we've got better than a 50-50 chance," Akerson said, "to develop a car that will go to 200 miles on a charge," he said. "That would be a game changer."
When
commercialized, this 400 Wh/kg battery is expected to slash the price of a 300-‐mile range electric vehicle by cutting the cost of the battery pack by more than 50 percent.
GM's current electric car, the Chevrolet Volt, goes about 35 miles on a charge and has a small gas motor that generates power to keep the car going after that. Few competitors have electric cars with more than 100 miles of range. Tesla Motors' Model S can go up to 300 miles, but it has a much larger battery and can cost more than twice as much as a Volt. Nissan's Leaf and Ford's Focus electric cars both claim ranges of around 100 miles, but that can vary with temperature, terrain and speed.
Envia said earlier this year that its next-generation rechargeable lithium-ion cell hit a record high for energy density. The company said the new battery could slash the price of electric vehicles by cutting the battery cost in half.
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