Original URL: http://www.reghardware.com/2008/09/18/chrysler_electric_poll_plan/
Chrysler plans electric car production model
Will 300-mile range model prove popular with sellers?
'Leccy Tech Chrysler look set to follow General Motors and put its own electric car into production in 2010 based on the four-door ecoVoyager concept it showed off earlier this year.
At the time, Chrysler claimed the entirely electric ecoVoyager will have a range of 300 miles. Put that in your Volt [1] and smoke it, GM.
To be fair to GM, its Chevy Volt, which can travel 40 miles on a battery charge, was this week being touted as a model that's ready for production, whereas Chrysler has simply talking concepts so far.
Chrysler's ecoVoyager: production design imminent?
It's thinking is expressed in the four-seater ecoVoyager, which, like the Volt, has an entirely electric powertrain. The battery will be a lithium-ion job, but Chrysler also has the notion it'll fit a hydrogen fuel cell too, to pick up the work when the battery's flat, and it's that that allows it to claim a 300 mile range.
This model, along with two others, will be hawked around US dealers over the next month or so, AutoExpress magazine claims [2]. They get to chose which model will be put into production in the 2010-2012 timeframe.
One of the models, the paper says, drops the ecoVoyager's fuel cell in favour of a petrol-powered generator that kicks in to feed the electric engine with volts when the battery drops below a certain point. This is the same approach taken by the Volt.
Chrysler ecoVoyager Photo Gallery [3]
