Japanese electric car 'goes 300km' on single charge Tokyo (AFP) May 18, 2011 Japanese developers have unveiled an electric car they said Wednesday can travel more than 300 kilometres before its battery runs flat. Electric vehicle specialist SIM-Drive, which hopes to take the car to market by 2013 but gave no projected cost, said its four-seater "SIM-LEI" had motors inside each wheel and a super-light frame, allowing for 333 kilometres (207 miles) of motoring on one charge in a test. Its designers say they hope the prototype, a joint project among 34 organisations including Mitsubishi Motors and engineering firm IHI, will be sold to car manufacturers for mass production. Automakers such as Nissan, which launched its all-electric Leaf last year with a 160-kilometre range, are gambling that electric cars with zero tailpipe emissions will catch on and, some time in the future, start to drive traditional petrol-guzzlers off the road. Electric cars still face key hurdles such as costly batteries and the lack of conveniently-located recharging points, which limits their operating radius.
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Perfect welds for car bodies Munich, Germany (SPX) May 17, 2011 As if controlled by an invisible hand, the welding head on the robot's arm races along the sheet metal parts. Where the laser hits, sparks fly and the metal glows red hot. The process lasts just a few seconds. The outer door panel and the door frame are now welded together perfectly. A thin weld seam extends along the join, but it can only be seen on one side. From the other side of the wel ... read more |
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