PSA and Renault believe that electric cars must be specific

What are the major stars of the world of automotive: electric cars bloom on many stands. Major manufacturers are returning and the first marketable vehicles point on the horizon. The quadrupling of the price of a barrel since 2000, and the pressure prescribed for placing on the market of cars emitting less CO2, have revived the idea of electric cars.

"He spent a lot of things over the past two years", stated at the beginning of the year Patrick Pélata, Deputy Director General of Renault then in charge of the plan, products and programs, referring to the speech on the State of the Union of President Bush in 2007, the reduction in the cost batteries and the emergence of many start-up companies in the field of the electric car.

The first wave failed

Yet, the idea is hardly novel: a first wave of models had been there 15 years in most European manufacturers. In France, the Citroën AX and Peugeot 106 Electric or other Renault Clio is were encountered problems of autonomy: 80 km, technology nickel-cadmium batteries were flat, a too remote figure that promised their manufacturers. The builders had felt betrayed and swore that it do there resume them more.

But 2008 is not 1993, and the automotive industry boosts the development of these cars with more certainty as to the performance of the batteries, although manufacturers remain wary. This caution is one of the founding elements of the General Motors E-Flex program. After a series of prototypes (Hy Wire and Sequel) exploring electric motorization and the fuel cell, the Builder of Detroit set a more realistic project, that of an electric vehicle for low autonomy (about 64 km) but which the batteries are rechargeable by an auxiliary gasoline engine. GM has given the departure of its Chevrolet Volt project at the beginning of 2007 and therefore had no certainty on batteries, where the concept of charger on-board.

The battery, heart of the vehicle

To design an electric car, manufacturers must escape some reflexes. It is one of the conclusions drawn from the failure of the first wave of the 1990s, the electric car may be a simple classic car "electrified". "To be designing the car around the batteries", indicates a PSA Peugeot Citroën project leaders. His group, which reduce its ambitions in the field of hybrid, relaunching major projects of electric cars.

But in addition to the vehicle and its battery, electric propulsion application a third actor: recharge system. Here's why Renault-Nissan chose to ally with the Israeli industrial Shai Agassi, the initiator of the project Better Place. The three allies will carry out an experiment in Israel by 2011. These cars will be equipped with lithium-ion batteries produced by AESC (Automotive Energy Supply Corporation), the joint venture founded in 2007 by NEC and Nissan. The Israeli project involves the installation of 500,000 charging stations in a long country of 250 km, out of the Negev desert. Moreover, the principle of charging by solar panels is easier in sunny countries.

According to Patrick Pélata, future generations of Solar Silicon will help recharge an electric vehicle with 15 square metres of panels. Renault appears also confident in the potential of the electric models on the European market, such as a second car: households having two vehicles in large agglomerations represent 15 of the European automotive market.

PSA and Renault believe that electric cars must be specific. But the second begins in an intermediate step, that of the electric Mégane, to "do not remove the user", said Jean-Louis Ricaud, Deputy Director General Engineering and quality, the end of September at Guyancourt.