Pininfarina to build electric cars in joint venture
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Pininfarina will invest about 150 million euros in a 50-50 joint venture to build 15,000 electric cars a year. |
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Pininfarina will build the yet-unnamed car in Italy.
The car will be sold as a Pininfarina in Europe, US and Japan starting in 2010.
The companies will invest about 150 million euros in the 50-50 joint venture to build 15,000 vehicles a year.
The four-seat Pininfarina electric car will provide a 250km range in city driving and is designed to operate for more than 200,000km.
More stringent CO2 emission standards proposed this week by the European Commission give new life to zero-emission vehicles such as electric cars.
On November 28, Think Global launched production of an electric minicar for European markets.
The Norwegian company plans to start sales in Norway and Denmark in the first half of 2008 and aims to build 7,000 to 10,000 units a year at its Aurskog, northeast of Oslo plant by 2009.
In 2009, Mitsubishi Motors will introduce the MiEV electric minicar in Japan.
The Japanese carmaker is investigating whether to launch the MiEV in Europe.
The Pininfarina electric car can be recharged by plugging it into a standard home electrical outlet. A full charge will take about five hours, but a five-minute charge will be enough for a 25km trip.
The car will feature battery technology Bollorč has spent 15 years developing.
What makes Bollorč so-called Lithium Metal Polymer technology different from traditional Lithium Ion technology is that each battery cell is electronically protected by passive and active systems that constantly monitor operating efficiency, voltage and temperature of each element.
The cells are encased in a steel container to prevent damage.
Bolloré was founded in 1822 and has more than 6 billion euros in revenues and 32,000 employees worldwide in industrial, transportation and media activities.
You may e-mail Luca Ciferri at lciferri@craincom.de
You can reach Luca Ciferri at lciferri@crain.com.
