Electric vehicle batteries

Abstract

In 1990, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) adopted the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate to regulate the quality of California's air. U.S. automobile manufacturers teamed up to tackle the basic problem of electric vehicles (EV), the inadequate capabilities of existing batteries, by organizing the U.S. Advanced Batteries Consortium (USABC). Despite unprecedented development efforts and impressive progress, it became apparent in 1995 that the new generation of high energy, high power batteries was not going to be commercially available in time for the start of the ZEV mandate. Thus, forced to re-examine the provisions of its ZEV program, CARB commissioned a review of the status of the development of advanced EV batteries.