The evolution of the Dodge EV has finally arrived. The Dodge Circuit is everything the Dodge EV was and more. Boasting a premium sound system, power windows/doors, cruise control, leather seats, leather wrapped steering wheel - everything you would expect from a high performance sportscar.
“The exterior styling of the Dodge Circuit EV mates bold Dodge styling to the no-compromise performance attributes of an all-electric performance sports car,” said Ralph Gilles, Vice President – Design, Chrysler LLC. “The Dodge Circuit EV offers an extremely fun-to-drive, expressive sports car without fuel consumption and with virtually no impact on the environment.”
The Circuit utilizes a very simple powertrain to get it moving: the electric motor, battery system, and the controller that controls the flow of energy. The motor is a 200kW (268 HP) motor that’ll propel the Circuit from 0-60 in just under 5 seconds. It does the 1/4 mile in just 13 seconds and has a top speed of over 120 miles per hour.
The battery pack on the Circuit provides 150 to 200 miles of zero emission driving before needing to be recharged. That’s more than three times the average daily commute. The Circuit can be recharged by plugging into any standard 110 volt household outlet, it can also be plugged into a standard 220 volt appliance outlet to cut the recharge time in half.
While many believe that Chrysler won’t be around in a couple of years, Chrysler is moving ahead with plans to electrify the automobile. And, in a CNN piece, Chrysler took a poke at the Chevy Volt and claimed that it wouldn’t be a one trick pony, or “one electric vehicle company.”
Thus, Chrysler’s big EV plans are to forgo aerodynamics, weight and fancy designs. Instead, Chrysler will begin its EV program by converting traditional Chrysler vehicles into electric vehicles, while achieving the same kinds of performance as a Volt - all at a cheaper cost to the automaker and to consumers.
We all know that the Dodge EV is based on a Lotus Europa. The yellow car with black stipes down the hood is what we were introduced too. However, none of us thought that it was a Dodge when we looked at it. The production car is going to get a face lift, probably something that looks more like the Viper than the Lotus it looks like now.
The spy shots were taken at night, Chrysler is being very secretive and sneaky with testing their new EV. They don’t want to let the cat out of the bag on this one just yet. The new face is distinctly Dodge, however, we don’t quite know yet what the rest of the body will look like.
Although Chrysler has not yet said which EV it will make first (they only said that one of them will be produced in 2010, the others will, but not until later), there’s a good chance that it’ll be the Dodge EV. They already have it up and running and the speed at which it’s received a new body indicates that they’re going to be pushing this one out the door sooner than later.
Assuming that Chrysler gets those auto loans the Dodge EV would hit the lots in late 2010.
Ever since chrysler unveiled the three production intent electric vehicles to the public the Dodge EV has been compared to either the Dodge Viper or the Tesla Roadster. Both comparisons are appropriate since all three vehicles are high performance cars. The Viper has incredible horsepower and 0-60 times, it is also a sports car that only seats two people. It’s also a Dodge, but the comparisons between the Viper and the EV don’t go much further than that. The EV really has a lot more in common with the Tesla Roadster.
The Tesla Roadster is built on top of a Lotus Elise. Tesla imports the Elise and then modifies to a great extent to make the Roadster. As an all electric car it uses no gas and almost no oil during every day use. It also has a lot fewer moving parts so there’s less chance of something going wrong. The Roadster has a battery pack that will give it a 250 mile range and can recharge overnight.
The Dodge EV is built on top of a Lotus Europa. Dodge imports the Europa and then modifies it to make the all electric Dodge EV. It is very similar to the Roadster in the manner in how it drives, acceleration, braking, handling, etc. According to Dodge the battery pack will let you go 200 miles before needing a recharge, 50 miles less than the Roadster.
We should also note the biggest difference is that the Roadster is already in production. Tesla has delivered 70 of them so far and has over 1200 people on the waiting list. Right now they can produce 10 a week but that is expected to double in 2009. Notably Jay Leno, George Clooney, and the Governator have all bought a Roadster.
Assuming Chrysler makes it through the next 18 months (big assumption right now) the Dodge EV could very well be their first production vehicle. Chrysler intends to have one in production by the end of 2010. The low volume and prebuilt chassis make the Dodge EV a prime suspect for the first ENVI production vehicle. My guess at the price would be in the 90k range, undercutting Tesla by 20 thousand.
Competition is good, but I hope that the Dodge EV doesn’t hurt Tesla’s sales. They are, after all, the first new American car company in a long time and they’re building cars that will help us get off of oil. Good luck to both.
While a lot of the legwork was done for them by Lotus, we still have to give Chrysler a little credit for getting an electric vehicle prototype on the road so quickly. When we first saw the Dodge EV a couple of months ago, it looked like it was ready to roll, with a Tesla-like blend of Lotus platform and electric powerpack. Soon after we heard that the car was likely to make it to production, with a delivery date that would challenge the Chevrolet Volt. While it had appeared that Chrysler was way behind its domestic rivals in developing an electric car, we know that through their GEM subsidiary, Chrysler has actually accumulated a lot of EV expertise and become the nation’s leading electric car seller in the process.
The Dodge EV is essentially a Lotus Europa, but uses lithium batteries and a 268 hp electric motor in place of the standard 2.0L four cylinder engine and transmission. It promises a range of 150-200 miles and a 0-60 time of under 5 seconds. It’s a full-blown, plug-in EV, just like the Tesla Roadster, and should require a 4-hour recharge from a 220V outlet or 8 hours on a 110. To help launch Chrysler’s new ENVI electric car division, the Dodge EV has been traveling the show circuit, but today we spotted it at one of our favorite local cruise-ins.
Chrysler LLC’s three advanced production-intent electric vehicle prototype vehicles are headed to California, where they will make their worldwide auto show debut at the 2008 Los Angeles Auto Show.
The vehicles — the Dodge EV, Jeep(R) EV and Chrysler EV — will be on display during press days (Nov. 19-20), and throughout the show’s public days (Nov. 21-30). Frank Klegon, Executive Vice President - Product Development, Chrysler LLC, will attend the show tomorrow to discuss the vehicles with journalists.
Chrysler recently announced that at least one of these models will be produced in 2010 for consumers in North American markets, and European markets after 2010. Additionally, the Company will have close to one hundred electric vehicles on the road in government, business and development fleets in 2009.
Chrysler is well into the development of advanced production-intent electric vehicles, and will apply its electric-drive technology to its front-wheel-drive, rear-wheel-drive and body-on-frame four-wheel-drive platforms in the next several years.
“We have a social responsibility to our consumers to deliver environmentally friendly, fuel efficient, advanced electric vehicles, and our intention is to meet that responsibility quickly and more broadly than any other automobile manufacturer,” said Bob Nardelli, Chairman and CEO - Chrysler LLC. “The introduction of the Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge electric vehicles provides a glimpse of the very near future, and demonstrates that we are serious and well along in the development of bringing electric vehicles to market.”
Electric Vehicle Technology
Chrysler’s Electric Vehicles utilize just three primary components. These include an electric motor to drive the wheels, an advanced lithium-ion battery system to power the electric-drive motor, and a controller that manages energy flow. The electric-drive system is being developed for front-wheel-drive, rear-wheel-drive, and body-on-frame four-wheel-drive vehicle applications.
While showing off Chrysler’s electric vehicles at the Rose Bowl last Friday, ENVI head Lou Rhodes (driving an electric Dodge eV concept car) and Doug Quigley of engineering (in the Challenger SRT8), raced down the Pasadena stadium’s massive parking lot. You can see the video.
A while back we reported that the Dodge EV had a good chance of being the vehicle that Chrysler puts into production in 2010. Eventually all three will be in production, but only one of them will get there in 2010, the others will be a bit further off. We’re now seeing reports that the minivan could be the first EV into production. And the more we think about it the more it makes perfect sense.
“We’ve certainly got the possibility of electrifying our vehicles now,” said Reid Bigland, president of Chrysler Canada Inc. “It’s not pie-in-the-sky.”
The only competition for the minivan ev would be the Chevy Volt, a four seater car. If the Chrysler EV can get the same 40 miles without using any gas, and if it will get decent mileage while using gas (Chevy claims that the Volt will get 50 on gas), the minivan could steal a few customers of the Volt and a few that were waiting for a bigger vehicle.
There are plenty of people that would like to get something like the Volt but they either have too big a family or they need to haul too much stuff around on a regular basis for the Volt to be practical for them. The Chrysler EV is the perfect solution for them. They get 40 miles of gas free driving and pretty good (great for a minivan) mileage after that.
The other reason for the Chrysler EV to be the first is the simplicity of it. The Chrysler Town and Country already has a lot of storage in the middle of the vehicle for the stow and go seating. If the owner opts for swivel and go instead of the stow and go that storage space isn’t used for the seats (since the swivel and go can’t fold into the floor), it’s just storage. The batteries needed to make the Chrysler EV will go there, so the owner will get the swivel and go seats but they lose the storage capacity. A small price to pay for the ability to use no gas.
“We didn’t have to do much tear-up,” Quigley says of the conversion process: engineers simply filled the second-row seat tubs with batteries intead of foldaway seats, and put Swivel ‘N Go seats in the van instead.
The location of the storage is optimal for the batteries. It’s low to the ground and in the middle of the vehicle. Nothing needs to be done to tune the suspension for handling with the extra 400ish pounds of weight. Since it’s under the body of the vehicle is should also be easier to keep the batteries cool.
Once you put the batteries in all you have to do is hook up an electric motor to them, provide a small 4 cylinder engine to power it when the batteries are low and you have yourself and EV. Of course it’s not that simple, some of the components in the EV need to be redesigned, extensive testing needs to be done to make sure that the EV is safe and reliable. But it’s a lot easier and quicker to do the minivan than it would be to do the Wrangler or the Dodge EV.
When Chrysler reveiled their three ENVI vehicles a few weeks ago we found that one of them was an all electric sports car for Dodge. Likely a replacement for the Viper (Chrysler is looking to sell the Viper name for some cash, the new CAFE standards preclude Chrysler from making the Viper in a few years). The Dodge EV with it’s batteries would have a range of over 150 miles, but that’s not very practical for every day buyers. Then again, a Viper isn’t that practical either.
The other two EVs are extended range electric vehicles (that’s GMs term for it). They use batteries for the first 40 miles to power an electric motor that drives the wheels and then a gas engine switches on to extend the range. The Chevy Volt does the exact same with it’s engine and motor. The question has been, does the gas engine bypass the batteries like the Volt does, or does it run a generator that recharges the batteries so that the batteries will always power the electric motor.
“The gas engine recharges the battery a little bit,” said Cole Quinnell, a Chrysler spokesman. “But that’s just excess and overflow, not the central intent. It’s more efficient for the gas motor to drive the wheels, not recharge the batteries. The cost to recharge the battery by running the generator is eight times the cost of taking it home and plugging it in.”
Along with the actual dollar cost of using gas to recharge the batteries the longevity of the battery pack is a consideration for this decision. Rechargeable batteries have a lifespan of only so many charges. Having the gas engine constantly recharge the battery pack would shorten the life of the batteries significantly.
