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THE cost of electric cars will halve in two years as production ramps up to meet demand, Mitsubishi president Osamu Masuko said yesterday as he announced that the first batch of battery-powered vehicles for Australia would go on sale next month.

The car, called the iMiev, has been undergoing fleet trials around Australia for months and Mr Masuko said Mitsubishi wanted to take a lead with the technology. "This announcement will ensure that we will be No 1 in bringing the electric vehicle to Australia," he said.

The first shipment of 40 cars will be offered on three-year leases for $1740 a month, with the cars returned to Mitsubishi at the end of the term.

The company said that, despite the total cost of $62,640, there was a lot of interest from a broad range of buyers including governments, businesses and individuals.

Mitsubishi expects demand for electric vehicles and hybrids to run hot over the next few years and believes they will hold more than 20 per cent of the global market by the end of the decade.

Mitsubishi planned to quadruple production of the iMiev to 40,000 a year by 2012, Mr Masuko said, and economies of scale would halve the price of the car.

But Mr Masuko said it was vital that governments helped establish the technology, which was still in the earlier stages.

"In the initial instance we will require some assistance in terms of government infrastructure, especially with quick-charge stations," he said.

In Japan, where the government offers incentives to buyers of battery vehicles, the iMiev costs about Y=4 million ($52,000).

Electric vehicle purchases are also subsidised in the US, Europe and other markets. Australia does not have such a scheme, but the federal government yesterday committed to take three iMievs after Mr Masuko met Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in Canberra and demonstrated the car to Transport Minister Anthony Albanese and Climate Change Minister Penny Wong.

Mr Albanese said 85 per cent of Australians drivers travelled less than 100km a day, so the car was ideal for their needs.

"Fully electric vehicles offer significant benefits in dealing with climate change in the longer term," he said.

"There's no doubt that the Australian market is ready for an electric vehicle."

China will offer subsidies for electric vehicle purchases in five cities, the Ministry of Finance said Tuesday.

As part of efforts to save energy and reduce emissions, China will offer a subsidy of up to CNY60,000 for each electric vehicle purchased in Shanghai, Changchun, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Hefei, the ministry said in a statement on its website.

The new subsidy was jointly launched with several government agencies, including the economic planning agency, the ministry said, without disclosing a time frame for the subsidy.

The central government urged municipal governments to invest in relevant infrastructure for electric vehicles, such as battery recharging stations, the statement said.

The next five years will see rapid advances in advanced battery technology, as dozens of manufacturers position themselves to meet the anticipated demands of newly electrified vehicles being launched by nearly every major global automotive company. Despite the support of the federal government, U.S. battery companies have struggled to gain market share while the Asian market for vehicle batteries has taken off. Asian manufacturers, which have traditionally dominated the global market for lithium ion (Li-ion) batteries in various electronics categories, will continue to lead in both Li-ion production and consumption as the global market for electrified vehicles grows rapidly over the next several years, according to a recent report from Pike Research.

“The Obama administration is making a concerted effort to prevent the failure of the U.S. auto industry, and that will bolster development of the U.S. battery industry through 2012,” says senior analyst John Gartner. “But political shifts and market realities could remove that safety net.

Pike Research anticipates that improved manufacturing efficiencies and expanded access to lithium will halve the installed cost of Li-ion vehicle batteries between 2010 and 2015, to $470 per kWh (kilowatt hour). The Li-ion transportation battery industry will grow more than eight-fold in the next five years, the cleantech market intelligence firm forecasts, with nearly $8 billion in sales worldwide by 2015, up from $878 million in 2010. Total electrified vehicle sales in the Asia Pacific region will reach almost 1.1 million in 2015, more than the U.S. and Western Europe combined. And the Asian Li-ion battery market will surpass $4 billion, representing 53% of total worldwide sales, in the same timeframe.

Even though vehicles powered at least part-time by battery power only will make up less than 2.5% of the world's fleet in 2015, Pike Research believes that the development of safe, reliable, and less costly Li-ion batteries will slowly reshape the automotive industry as it moves towards electrification and away from fossil fuels.

Pike Research’s report, “Electric Vehicle Batteries”, examines the key market dynamics for Lithium Ion batteries in hybrid, plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles. Analysis includes industry and government drivers for the electrification of vehicles, and the role of advanced battery technologies in the development of this new sector. The report includes profiles of key players and market forecasts through 2015.

Dodge e RAM presentano i nuovi loghi. Il caratteristico Ariete, da sempre simbolo Dodge, lascia il posto ad una semplice scritta con due barre laterali riprese dai modelli sportivi SRT, mentre l’inedito brand dedicato a pick-up e SUV si fregerà dello storico logo "animalesco". La prima vettura a sfoggiare il nuovo look sarà la Dodge Charger nel 2011.
(Fonte: www.autoblog.it - 27/5/2010)

A consortium including the University of Tokyo, Toray Industries Inc., and Mitsubishi Rayon Co. ( has developed a new automotive carbon fiber material that is as easy to process as metal.

The developers reckon that it can be made into a wide variety of components, including bodies and engine parts. The consortium will work with Toyota Motor Corp., Nissan Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co. to develop technology for mass-producing parts made from the material, which could make cars lighter.

The material, which is made from carbon fiber and a plastic that becomes shapeable with heat, took just two minutes to mold in trials. The developers say automation can reduce the time to one minute—about as long as it takes to mold metal. Parts made from the material can be welded together or reshaped with heat just as if they were made from metal.

Over the next two years, the consortium will experiment with making various types of autoparts from the new material.