Electric cars will grow in '09

Electric cars will grow in '09

Jan 6 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Steve Tarter Journal Star, Peoria, Ill.

While the trials and tribulations of the Big Three auto makers got most of the attention in 2008, electric cars are expected to make news in 2009.

"All of the auto makers are working on electric vehicles in some form," said Jennifer Watts, spokeswoman for the Washington, D.C.-based Electric Drive Transportation Association.

There's plenty of room to grow, she said. While sales of hybrid cars -- vehicles with both gas-powered and electric engines -- continue to increase each year, Watts said electric-powered cars make up only 2 percent of the vehicles on U.S. roads even though hybrid technology is over 10 years old.

"Electric drive vehicles are definitely part of the future. We hope that with all the variety of plans coming to market that should help accelerate the numbers," she said.

EDTA represents all forms of electric-powered cars, not just hybrids, said Watts.

"You can't bet on just one technology," said Mil Ovan, co-founder of Firefly Energy, 6533 N. Galena Rd., who participated in a panel discussion at an association conference on electric vehicles held in Washington, D.C., in December.

Ovan said failing to diversify was a mistake the Bush Administration made by committing hundreds of millions of dollars to research on fuel-cell technology (while spending considerably less on standard battery technology).

"Despite all the funding, we're no closer to a fuel-cell-powered vehicle than we were 10 years ago," he said.

"There's no one single solution. You will see a range of battery power packs," said Ovan of different models now moving from drawing boards to showrooms of the world's automakers.

One of those models may be the lightweight, high-tech, lead acid battery Firefly is developing, he said.

Ovan said Firefly's research drew plenty of interest at the conference, a fact reinforced by an increase in visitors on the firm's Web site.

"We were averaging about 200,000 hits a month (at fireflyenergy.com) until October. Since then we've been getting about 1.2 million hits a month," he said.

Ovan believes it's important that the United States not trade a reliance on foreign oil for a dependence on batteries made overseas. "I think there's finally been an understanding from the Big Three and by government officials about that issue when they recently called for a consortium to produce batteries in this country," he said.

At present, most lithium-ion batteries are produced in China, said Ovan, citing safety concerns over the lithium-ion power packs. The recent explosion on a U.S. submarine earlier this month reportedly involved lithium-ion batteries, he said.