SmartEnergyViews

The Tennessean

[Beginning] July 1, medium-speed electric- or gasoline-powered vehicles with four wheels can travel up to 35 mph, and can use roads where the speed limit is 40. Golf carts are excluded.

Tennessee joins Montana and Washington as the only states with such a law. Most of the rest follow a 1998 federal law that allows the low-speed vehicles to travel up to 25 mph.

According to the report, there are 1, 211 low-speed vehicles registered in Tennessee.

Ford Motor Co. EVP Mark Fields discussed Ford's hybrid and plug-in electric plans at a recent industry conference. He noted that Ford is launching hybrid versions of its Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan autos later this year and discussed some of the challenges in bringing a PEHV to market.

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A secretive Austin Texas company claims to have invented a solid state battery that will make current electro-chemical batteries and the internal combustion engine obsolete. Skeptics say it is beyond any known technology and compared it to "alchemy."

According to news reports, batteries based on EEStor's ultracapacitor technology would enable you to plug in your electric car for five minutes and drive 500 miles on the charge. It could also be used to store power from solar panels and for "flash" charging of devices such as laptops and cellphones.

A small electric car company, ZENN Motors, has licensed the technology and expects to use it in a short-range, low-speed vehicle later this year.

On the web:

• EEStor Wikipedia

• EEStor Patent 7,033,406

• ZENN Motor Company