Europeans plunge into developing electric car

From boxy buses and quiet pickup trucks to bubble-like golf carts, electric cars are the transport of tomorrow.

Or are they?

Technology for electric vehicles is still in its infancy. Battery-powered cars don’t go very far or fast, and they cost a lot to buy. Chemicals used in the batteries are hazardous.

Nevertheless, like their American counterparts, European automakers have plunged into developing electric cars, which they showed off at this month’s International Auto Show in Geneva, Switzerland.

The companies are spurred partly by environmental altruism, but also by the reality that by 1998 California will require 2 percent of all major manufacturers’ vehicles sold in the state to be free of tailpipe emissions.

The quota will rise to 10 percent by the year 2003.

Like their American and Japanese counterparts, European carmakers are studying battery-operated cars that can be recharged on a household current.

PSA Peugeot Citroen: A leader in electric vehicle research, it has already sold some 300 of its Forgons to France’s national electric power company and to city governments. The Forgons are station wagon-like trucks.

By 1995 Peugeot will market electric versions of its smallest cars, the Peugeot 106 and Citroen AX, which will have a range of 75 miles and a top speed of 56 m.p.h. The battery, rechargeable overnight, would be rented for a monthly fee that’s comparable to the cost of gasoline.

“We anticipate volume sales, and hope eventually to sell 50,000 a year,” said Hugues Dufour, a spokesman for Peugeot Citroen, Europe’s third-largest automaker. “We’re aiming for the same price, or even lower, as a conventional 106 or AX, minus the battery.”

Volkswagen: The Chico has a range of more than 62 miles with its “nickel-metal hydride” battery, which is more powerful than conventional lead acid or sodium sulfide batteries.

Chico, like many electric cars, is not yet ready for commercial sale. But Volkswagen, Europe’s largest carmaker, has sold more than 100 electric versions of the popular Golf, mainly to city governments and public organizations.

Two sodium-sulfur batteries give the Golf a range of 125 miles, said Adolf Kalberlah, VW’s manager for electric propulsion.

Fiat: Europe’s No. 2 automaker has sold some 350 Panda Electras in the past two years, mostly to local authorities and utility firms.
An electric version of Fiat’s tiny but beloved Cinquecento is now being made available. With a 44-mile range, it’s suited for limited city driving, though nickel-cadmium batteries can extend the range.

But the electric Cinquecento is 2.7 times more expensive than the standard model, and demand is so low the car is virtually being built by hand, Fiat officials said.
For all their efforts, some of the automakers are less than enthusiastic about electricity’s potential. They concede the cars don’t go as far as most drivers would like without recharging the battery.

“California needs ranges so large that people can’t do anything with Golf lead acid batteries – they’re useless in America,” said Kalberlah.
“We don’t see a future for an electric city car,” Mercedes-Benz electric car engineer Joachim Kaden bluntly told Autocar and Motor magazine in January. “That would create a two-class society and is not a feasible solution.”

In California, “They can force us to sell electric cars, but nobody can tell people to buy them,” Kaden told the magazine.
But even Mercedes is forging ahead in the electric car market. The company fitted its 190 model with an experimental battery that takes 14 hours to charge – and adds $35,700 to the car’s already hefty price.

Rival BMW has developed the battery-run E1, a little station wagon with a sodium-sulfur battery. But no need to hold onto your hat when you floor the accelera tor: The E1 goes from zero to 50 mph in 18 seconds, an eternity by internal combustion standards. It nevertheless has a respectable top speed of 75 mph, with a range of up to 162 miles at lower speeds.

Not surprisingly, the Japanese are forging ahead as well. At the Geneva show Mazda showed off its experimental HR-X, which bears a hydrogen rotary engine, while Nissan displayed its FEV (future electric vehicle), which can charge fully in 15 minutes.

Motor Crafts Transportation. Definitions.

In adopting laws or rules for the regulation of automobile transportation, it has been found convenient and advisable to define several terms that are frequently used, such as motor bus, public service motor vehicle, jitney, transportation for hire, public highway, etc. These will be useful as a working basis in framing laws, rules, and regulations in jurisdictions where nothing has as yet been done to bring this type of transportation under public control. Such terms have been defined as follows:

In the Connecticut act, the term “public service motor vehicle” includes all motor vehicles used for the transportation of passengers for hire.

The term “motor vehicle” has been defined by the Arizona Commission to mean “an automobile, an auto stage, a motor bus, or any other self-propelled power vehicle not operated or driven over or upon fixed rails or tracks.” The term “motor vehicles’ as used in the Utah Eules and Regulations Governing Automobile Stage Lines, includes any automobile, auto stage, motor bus, motor truck, or other self-propelled vehicle owned or operated by an automobile corporation for use in the business of carrying either passengers or freight or both for compensation over established routes within the state, and the rules apply, so far as reasonably applicable in each instance, to all automobile corporations as defined, and to persons, firms, or companies operating or causing same to be operated.

The words “motor bus,” under the rules of the Maine Commission, “mean and include any automobile, automobile truck, or trackless motor vehicle engaged in the business of carrying passengers within the state of Maine, which is held out or an- nounced by sign, voice, writing, device, or advertisement to operate or run, or which is intended to be operated or run over a particular street or route, or to any particular or designated point, or between any designated points, zones, or districts.”

In the District of Columbia, the term “bus” or “motor bus” is deemed to include any motor vehicle operated for the transportation of passengers for hire over a defined route, approved by order of the Public Utilities Commission of the District.

The term “closed bus,” or “closed motor bus,” is deemed by the Commission to include any motor bus, the body of which is so constructed that it is or may be enclosed entirely with fixed or movable sides or windows. 46 The ordinance of the city of Fort Worth, the validity of which was attacked in the Auto Transit Company case, defined the words “motor bus” as meaning and including “any automobile, automobile truck, or trackless motor vehicle engaged in the business of carrying passengers for hire within the city limits of the city of Fort Worth which is held out or announced by sign, voice, writing, device, or advertisement to operate or run, or which is intended to be operated or run, over a particular street or route or to any particular or designated point, or between particular points, or to within any designated territory, district, or zone.

Under the Connecticut statutes, the term “jitney” includes any public service motor vehicle operated in whole or in part upon any street or highway in such a manner as to afford a means of transportation similar to that afforded by a street railway company by indiscriminately receiving or discharging passengers; or running on a regular route or over any portion there- of, or between fixed termini.

A jitney has been held to be a self-propelled vehicle, other than a street car, traversing the public streets between certain definite points or termini, and as a common carrier conveying passengers at a 5-cent or some small fare, between such termini and intermediate points, and so held out, advertised, or announced. In Arizona, the term “public highway” means any public street, alley, or road in the state. The word “transportation” means the receipt, carriage, and delivery of passengers and their baggage, for hire, by motor vehicle.

In Washington, the term “auto transportation company” means every corporation or person, their lessees, trustees, receivers or trustees appointed by any court whatsoever, owning, controlling, operating, or managing any motor propelled vehicle not usually operated on or over rails used in the business of transporting persons, and, or, property for compensation over any public highway in this state between fixed termini or over a regular route, and not operating exclusively within the incorporated limits of any city or town:

Provided, that the term “auto transportation company,” as used in this act, shall not include corporations or persons, their lessees, trustees, receivers or trustees appointed by any court whatsoever, in so far as they own, control, operate, or manage taxicabs, hotel busses, school busses, motor propelled vehicles, operated exclusively in transporting agricultural, horticultural, or dairy or other farm prod- ucts from the point of production to the market, or any other carrier which does not come within the term a auto transportation company” as herein defined.

The term “for hire” has been held to mean a “monetary consideration (usually termed the fare) paid for the occupancy, during a journey, of all the available seating space in a motor vehicle or of any seat or seats therein.” The words “between fixed termini or over a regular route,” when used in the Washington statute, mean the termini or route between or over which any auto transportation company usually or ordinarily operates any motor propelled vehicle even though there may be departures from said termini or route, whether such departures be periodic or irregular. Whether or not any motor propelled vehicle is operated by any auto transportation company between fixed termini or over a regular route within the meaning of this act is a question of fact and the finding of the Commission thereon is final.