Electric Cars - Future of Motoring

As petrol prices continue to increase, environmental regulations being tightened and fear about global warming grows, world's major car makers are rushing ahead with plans to produce huge numbers of zero-emission electric vehicles at affordable prices.

Germany's biggest car makers Volkswagen and Daimler have already revealed their plans to roll out electric models in 2010, BMW said last week it would begin to test several hundred electric models of its Mini brand.
The German car makers are following a dual strategy. On one end they are fine-tuning the technology of the petrol and diesel engine, at the same time working on plug-in electric cars. Fuel consumption of new Volkswagen's, BMW's and Audi's has been reduced by between 10 and 15 percent with weight-reduction measures, engine management systems and start-stop technology. The Blue Motion diesels have emission figures similar to petrol cars combined with hybrid technology. The VW Polo Blue Motion for instance has a carbon dioxide emission figure of only 99 grams per kilometer.

In this area of Green Car Toyota already has a five-year lead; now Toyota has assigned a group of 50 research engineers to develop a more powerful battery for the hybrid and electric car. Toyota has announced that it will offer hybrid versions of all its models in the next 10 to 20 years and a plug-in hybrid will go on sale in 2010.

General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner announced that its Chevrolet Volt electric car will go on sale in 2010 at a price of under $30,000 (19,000 euros).

Nissan is preparing itself for an electric car market. It has announced that it will build a range of electric cars in the "near future." Nissan, owned by Renault, is reportedly planning a $1 billion budget on the electric car segment with an electric car planned for California in 2010 with a range of more than 100 kilometers.

Mr. Stadler of Audi expects diesel and battery technology to dominate within five to ten years, and by then, Audi would offer cars without exhaust emissions."
In the meanwhile state is gearing up, for developing Electric cars infrastructure-
San Francisco could move ahead to become one of the world's first cities with electric cars on the road in huge numbers. It is currently working on plans for building a network of charging and battery-exchange stations throughout the city.
California has a mandate for automakers to make 7,500 zero-emissions cars by 2014. That's probably why we've seen Honda FCX hydrogen car in that state.
It seems future for an Electric car is bright, but it needs to manufacturers to come together and handle issues like:

-Infra-structure for loading the energy and small things like an electric plug in the underground parking garage.
-Limitation of manufacturers to produce components and batteries for these vehicles.

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