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A group of MIT students have retrofitted a Porsche 914 with batteries in an effort to show that electric cars could be viable in the near future.

The students, led by senior Emmanuel Sin, removed the gas engine from the car and replaced it with an electric motor. The motor runs on 12 lithium-ion batteries from Valence Technologies, one of a group of companies trying to bring lithium-ion batteries to cars. Lithium-ion batteries can hold more energy than lead acid batteries, but they can be dangerous. Remember those exploding notebooks?

Sin (second from left) and students installing batteries.

(Credit: MIT)

The students hope to conduct a number of tests and test drives in the next few weeks. According to their estimates, the car should have a top speed of 70 to 100 mph and it will run 100 miles before needing a recharge. It will take about four to five hours to recharge the batteries in full. The car, being electric, won't emit fumes from the tailpipe.

Those figures above underscore the promise and peril of electric cars. Electric cars will generally emit far fewer greenhouse gases than regular cars, even when fumes from the power plant that provides electricity to recharge them is factored in. And they can be quite zippy.

But a range of 100 miles is problematic--not many Americans buy cars that can't get them too far out of town. If you had to leave San Francisco to do a quick meeting in San Jose, Calif., you might not make it back.

Then there is the charge time. If an owner wants to go away on a weekend, who wants to double the travel time with a four-hour charge? (However, the 100 mph maximum is probably acceptable to most drivers.)

Batteries are also expensive. Even advocates of plug-in hybrids say that you can't currently justify putting more batteries in your Prius by claiming you'll save money on gas. You'd have to drive several thousand miles before hitting breakeven. The batteries to convert a car like a Honda Accord might run $30,000, Ian Wright, designer of the X-1 electric sports car, has estimated. Still, battery advocates say prices will decline.

The Porsche, by the way, was donated by Yang Shao-Horn, a professor of mechanical engineering at MIT and a specialist on advanced batteries. She and her husband bought it on eBay.

Tesla Roadster: second engineering prototype

(Credit: CNET Networks)

If you want an all-electric sedan, start saving now.

Tesla Motors has more fully discussed its price goals for WhiteStar, an all-electric passenger sedan coming in late 2009 or 2010. The premium model will cost between $65,000 and $70,000, a company representative said, while the standard model will cost closer to $50,000.

The cars will differ by more than fancy seats. The company has said that the premium version will go from zero to 60 miles per hour in less than 6 seconds and go about 200 miles before needing a charge. The standard version will accelerate from 0 mph to 60 mph in just 6.7 seconds. Of course, these performance figures and prices could change before then.

Auto manufacturers and electric car manufacturers, though, will likely closely eye the sales of the more premier model. The 200 mile mark is sort of a magic figure for electric car makers, UC Berkeley Researcher Tim Lipman told us in a separate interview (about hydrogen cars) recently. Consumer surveys indicate that consumers are more willing to buy an electric or hydrogen car when it can go 200 miles. (A year ago, Tesla was mostly talking about a $50,000 sedan; it's unclear when the more expensive model was added.)

Is there a big market for $65,000 cars? Apparently so. Cars that cost $65,000 or more account for about ten percent of cars sold in the U.S. according to Todd Turner of Car Concepts, which conducts market research. 20 percent of U.S. cars cost more than $50,000.

Buyers, though, get a lot of car for that amount of money, Turner added. Companies like BMW, Mercedes and Land Rover dominate the category. Turner says he is a bit skeptical about consumers flocking to electric sedans in this price range just yet.

2007 is shaping up to be a big year for electric cars. Think Nordic, a Norwegian company, is coming out with an electric town car in Europe this summer. The car will cost $17,000 but consumers will have to lease the battery for an additional fee. Pheonix Motorcars will begin to deliver all-electric SUVs to municipalities. Tesla will also start shipping its sports car, the Tesla Roadster, to consumers toward the end of the year. It costs $92,000 and a few hundred people have put down deposits already.

Daimler Chrysler isn't giving up on hydrogen.

Next year, the company will roll out its second test hydrogen car, called the "B Class," to test drivers, according to Nick Cappa, manager of Advanced Technology Communication at the company. The car will be bigger than the current A Class (see picture) and go about 250 miles before running out of fuel.

Daimler's A Class hydrogen Mercedes

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News.com)

The fuel cell stack, the part that converts hydrogen and oxygen into electrons and water, will also ideally last about 5,000 hours, about the same amount as a conventional gas engine. Currently, the fuel cell stack destined for the B Class lasts about 2,500 hours. It will also convert about 50 to 60 percent of the fuel into actual work. The fuel cell in the A Class is about 38 to 45 percent efficient while gasoline cars rank only 14 percent. (All that engine heat--that's gasoline being converted to a non-productive use.)

The company will build hundreds of the vehicles too, in "near production" facilities that are more similar to the assembly line than those used for the earlier A Class. Only 60 or so of the A Class machines were built.

"By 2012 to 2015, we believe we will start seeing as many fuel cell vehicles as there are hybrids today," Cappa said in an interview this week. "We have been working on fuel cell technology for 12 years."

That's a more optimistic outlook than you will hear from other car companies, which say hydrogen vehicles will start rolling out in 2015. Still, if you count things like hydrogen-powered fork lifts already being used by Wal-Mart, delivery vans and municipal fleet cars, the prediction starts to look a little less outlandish.

Hydrogen cars are also pretty fun to drive. I zipped around in one at U.C. Berkeley. It cranks up to freeway speeds rapidly; inadvertently I dusted a video van that was following us (see guilt-free driving video on this page.) It also holds four people and has room for suitcases.

Naturally, significant hurdles will have to be cleared before consumers start snapping up hydrogen cars. Chemical manufacturers will have to come up with ways to make hydrogen in a cost-effective manner that doesn't produce large amounts of carbon dioxide.

Filling stations will also have to be created. Cappa, in fact, said the company will determine where in Europe and North America to test the car by looking at where BP will erect hydrogen filling stations. (BP and Daimler are working together on hydrogen issues.) The test drivers, by the way, will be ordinary people, not professional drivers.

The cost of cars will also have to decline. Daimler Chrysler has already invested $1 billion into hydrogen technology, but the cars do work. Around 2 million miles have been logged on fuel cell vehicles to date, and that arguably has saved 100,000 gallons of gasoline.

And consumers shouldn't be too worried about exploding. After all, they now drive around in a vehicle containing several gallons of a flammable liquid.