Mitsubishi and PSA Peugeot-Citroën Confirm Electric Car Collaboration

A New Electric Car…

Europe's second-largest light vehicle manufacturer, PSA Peugeot-Citroën and Japanese carmaker Mitsubishi Motors Corporation have confirmed that they are entering into a new cooperation in the area of electric powertrains. The start of a feasibility study on an extended collaboration in this area was announced this morning.

The project, which will run over several months, relates to the development, manufacture and use of an electric powertrain for small urban vehicles, the two companies said in a statement. It will accelerate the time it takes to bring such a vehicle to market, they said, and will step up the viability of electric vehicle projects.

For PSA, the agreement reinforces one of its strategic aims of maintaining leadership in environmentally friendly cars, as laid out in its Strategy and Ambition plan for the period 2012–2015. It is also consistent with Mitsubishi's aim of becoming one of the leading manufacturers of electric vehicles (EVs). This announcement comes just one week after PSA and Mitsubishi celebrated the groundbreaking ceremony of their joint venture factory in Kaluga, Russia (see Russia: 11 June 2008:  PSA and Mitsubishi Break Ground on Russian Plant).

…For PSA...

PSA Peugeot-Citroën said that it will bring to this project its expertise in the field of electric powertrains. With over 10,000 all-electric vehicles produced and sold between the late 1980s and 2005, PSA has built far more EVs to date than any other global carmaker. In the 1990s, PSA built electric versions of the Citroën AX and Saxo, and Peugeot 107 passenger cars as well as the Peugeot Partner and Citroën Berlingo light commercial vehicles (LCVs), all of which were fitted with nickel cadmium batteries. In 1999, PSA started delivering EVs to the French town of La Rochelle, in what is believed to be one of the first schemes of its type, leasing environmentally friendly vehicles as part of a communal car-pooling experiment. At the time, cutting out noise pollution was one of the key drivers of this experiment. PSA stopped its EV programme in 2005 after France applied the European Union (EU) End of Life Vehicle (ELV) directive which forbade the use of cadmium, already classed as a hazardous heavy metal by the EU, in cars.

…And For Mitsubishi

Mitsubishi has already prioritised development of its new-generation electric vehicle i MiEV for introduction in its home market of Japan in 2009 and possibly at a later date in Europe and the United States. In addition, Mitsubishi has set up Lithium Energy Japan, a joint venture (JV) founded in partnership with GS Yuasa and Mitsubishi Corporation, which is to supply large capacity and high performance lithium ion batteries for the i MiEV. Preparation for mass production of the batteries is going smoothly, the Japanese carmaker has said.

Outlook and Implications

Carmakers cannot act quickly enough to speed up the development of EVs, as recent improvements, particularly in lithium ion battery technology, has placed battery-electric cars at the forefront of the race to develop extremely low-emission, or even zero-emission cars in the short to medium term. Of course, there are still massive technical barriers to overcome, even though battery technology has improved greatly over the last couple of years, carmakers and suppliers must further reduce the size and cost of batteries, whilst increasing their range and safety credentials. There are also many unanswered questions, such as whether all-electric cars really can be considered ultra-low-emission if the electricity used to charge them comes from coal-fired power stations or whether the emissions are simply being displaced, for example. Currently, there is also a lack of the kind of widespread plug-in recharging infrastructure that would be needed to take EVs into the mainstream.

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