The plug in is the Outlander:

'Mitsubishi's official statement confirmed production of a plug-in version of the Outlander: "During fiscal 2012, Mitsubishi Motors will also be adding to its lineup an electric vehicle-based Outlander model, which will use a plug-in hybrid system derived from MMC's already existing EV technology."'

http://www.plugincars.com/mitsubishi-confirms-launch-2013-outlander-plug-hybrid-112132.html

Even $200 per kWh and 300 kWh per kg would be enough to get it rolling. When you look at that mass production requirements to produce millions of cell per day per factory time 100s of factories, producing 1 million EVs per year is quite a job.

SJC,

You probably mean 300 Wh/kg, but that aside, the table below shows the battery weight for a 70 kWh battery (good for ~400 km range) at different energy densities.

120 Wh/kg --> 580 kg
200 Wh/kg --> 350 kg
300 Wh/kg --> 230 kg
400 Wh/kg --> 175 kg

As can be seen, above 300 Wh/kg the weight savings get incrementally smaller. A battery >70 kWh is probably never really necessary as we can expect wireless charging to become ubiquitous. Reducing the weight of a modern car by, say, 100 kg is nice, but nothing that will fundamentally change anything.

I would say 200 Wh/kg is more than enough to get it rolling. 300 Wh/kg is nice to have. 200 Wh/kg is doable with proven technology.

yes..watt hour, typo.

The problem with BEVs is that the distance travelled is very variable.
80% of the time, you can get away with (say) 25 KwH, but to get to 95%, you need 60 KwH and to get to 98% you need 100 Kw H (and so on).
A pure BEV will always need a battery which is 3x larger than it needs to be (unless it is an urban delivery vehicle with a known journey route).
Even if you have 300 mile electric range, you have a battery that is 4x larger than it needs to be most of the time.
Hence you are better off with a PHEV or some type of range extender.
Ideally, you can size the battery such that you can do 80% of the journeys on electric, and do the rest on ICE.

While automotive batteries are in short supply, PHEVs are a much better use of scarce battery resources.

I think 140-150 mile range with a lot of fast chargers would be enough. If I can get 10 kWh in 15 minutes while I sip my coffee at Starbucks, I have no range problem. Most days the range gets me to any from work, even commuting and when I need a bit extra I take a break and charge while I lunch or shop.

Lots of families have two cars in the U.S. the other one is a gasoline powered SUV let's say. But for dad commuting to and from work, and EV is just fine and saves a lot of money.

300 Wh/kg could come from vanadium, 400 Wh/kg could come from sulfur, but I would not wait for either. The real trick in driving the cost down for 200 Wh/kg batteries is the huge manufacturing required in quantity.

Getting to $200 per kWh is best done by higher energy density and not economies of scale. You build half as many cells per kWh you can bring the price down.

@EP:
If recession in Europe etc leads to low pressure on oil prices then we might see a rise of around 40% from the winter low of around $3.11/US gallon to the June peak.
That would put petrol at around $4.15-4.30
This is into territory where BEVs are economically viable.

The more usual rise though is around 75%, so petrol would be around $5.30-45.

All this is aside any action in the Gulf forcing prices up to very high levels.

Since I can't see the mooted collapse in China happening, it now seems likely to me that oil prices will continue under severe pressure.

The 0.5 mbd the US gets from oil shales is overhyped enormously.

I would therefore see this year as being very bullish for electric cars.

Hi EP,
I don't know what will happen in the US but with diesel here in the UK at £1.43/litre, around $8 US gallon and similar prices in the rest of Europe if the range is acceptable then there is an open and shut case for the Renault Kangoo ZE which retails after subsidy at the same price as the diesel.
Renault sell about 700,000 of them a year so any substantial fraction of that means that much of the volume needed for electric vehicles is available.
The low cost Renault Zoe car is due for release in the fall.
According to rumour it may have as much as a 30kwh battery even this year.

$871 million committed to producing 125,000 EV battery packs ain't no flash in the bucket.

Consumers will have an alternative to oil.

I wonder will electrification develop on a broad or a narrow front.
A broad front would be where most cars go to stop/start, then BAS, then hybrid, then PHEV in various battery sizes.

A narrow front would be where a small number of people go for full BEVs and this opens up over the years.

Gasoline is about $8/ US gal (roughly the same as the UK and most of Europe).
We see almost zero electric cars in Ireland, and a few Prii. 73% of new cars are diesel (due to taxation measures be a previous green government).

So as far as Europe is concerned, the future seems to be more efficient ICE cars, with light hybridization blending in over time.

Also, even if demand in Europe falls, it will easily be covered by demand in developing regions - so don't expect a collapse in Europe to reduce oil prices very much.

@mahonj:
Some sort of progression through various levels of hybridisation might be likely if the costs progressed in the same way.
They don't, and full electric cars are inherently cheaper than plug in hybrids.

Micro hybrids and perhaps for bigger cars hybrids are pretty much a done deal, and will certainly expand.

However once you get into the debate about plug-ins as against pure electric, the inherent simplicity and lower parts count of the BEV makes them cheaper, to buy and to run.

For real mass adoption of BEVs oil prices have to go high enough to make some trade off of convenience worthwhile, while things like the Volt retain full utility.

So for cost reasons I see BEVs ahead of plug ins in likely mass adoption.

To me the idea is to reduce imported oil, to do that you need to reduce fuel consumption in heavy users like long haul trucks, delivery trucks and commuters. We can use LNG for long haul and CNG for delivery, but may need EV for commuters.

If you under size the genset, you can not climb at speed. You may need 60 hp for an hour or more and you will not have that.

We need to think outside the present frame, not all cars need to do all things. If I can commute in an EV, have chargers everywhere and save $3000 per year on gasoline, I am interested.