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http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/2/AmericanFlag.jpg Even more, dare we suggest it, the conventional combustion engined car may have met its match. (http://www.allcarselectric.com/blog/1050863_electric-car-drives-375-miles-at-55-mph-recharges-in-6-minutes)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/Johnson_Controls_Li-Ion_HEV_Pack.jpgNikki Gordon-bloomfield - ALLCARSELECTRIC (http://www.allcarselectric.com) - Oct 27, 2010

Ok, cue the questioning to find out where this has been hiding if it really holds true --Ed.

We all know that battery packs are the weakest link in electric vehicles. Not only are they heavy and expensive, but they take a long time to recharge and on average can only provide around 100 miles per charge.

A German-based company has changed all that with a new vehicle capable of driving up to 375 miles at moderate highway speeds.

That’s roughly the equivalent of driving from Santa Barbara, CA to the Hoover Dam, without a recharge.

It doesn’t end there. The company responsible for the battery pack, DBM Energy, claims a battery pack efficiency of 97 percent and a recharge time of around 6 minutes when charged from a direct current source.

Unlike the small Daihatsu which was heavily modified by a team in Japan earlier this year that achieved a massive 623 miles on a charge at around 27 mph, the Audi A2 modified by DBM Energy was able to achieve its 375 miles range at an average speed of 55 mph.

In contrast to the Japanese Daihatsu which had just one seat to enable more batteries to be squeezed into its diminutive frame, the DBM A2 retained its four original seats.

At the end of the historic drive, DBM’s CEO Mirko Hannemann, who has been driving the car for around seven hours between the German cities of Munich and Berlin even offered to charge up... http://www.allcarselectric.com/blog/1050863_electric-car-drives-375-miles-at-55-mph-recharges-in-6-minutes

The Audi A2 is probably the best car America never got. I would love to have a 3L A2 in my garage, parked next to the Insight, with one of them converted to EV.

Obviously, the defining feature of this EV is its battery. 115KWh is enormous. They also claim (http://adacemobility.wordpress.com/2010/10/26/das-wunder-von-berlin/#more-744) the battery only weighs 660lb, which would give it something like three times the density of the Leaf's. Even if they had used cheap LiFePO4 cells, it would still cost over $50,000 for the batteries alone based $470/KWh. Such a car can never be a daily driver.

253Wh/mi at 55mph, or about 63mpge. That's just poor. Put another way, this isn't the right car for the job of highway cruising. Nor does an urban commuter need 375mi range.

That claim of charging a 115KWh battery in six minutes should raise more than one red flag. That would require an average charge rate of 1.15 Megawatts! The article also didn't mention how long the batteries would last if you applied such enormous current to them every day, or even if you charged them at a more achieveable rate.

It's a nifty record car / engineering exercise, but they should have added a boat tail and shot for 500mi.

It's a nifty record car / engineering exercise, but they should have added a boat tail and shot for 500mi.

Since Audi seem to be whoring themselves lately to any company that wants to run a test it was probably easy to get that car.

Besides, they're trying to attract investment so a normal vehicle makes sense: making it a special aerodynamic vehicle would just introduce uncertainty.