The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and Fuji Heavy Industries, showed a prototype ‘next generation’ electric vehicle in Japan this week, according to a report in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper.

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The car is based on the Subaru R1 minicar and fitted with a lithium-ion battery that has been developed by a joint venture between Fuji and electronics company NEC, called NEC Lamillion Energy Co. The car has a range of 80km on a single charge, which is the distance TEPCO vehicles need to cover in a day.


According to the report TEPCO will put 40 of the cars into service. If successful TEPCO will expand its electric car fleet to 3,000 cars by 2012. Fuji hopes to be able to market the car by 2009.


Fuji and TEPCO announced their joint development project in September 2005. At the time they said they would spend around a year designing the car, basing it on an electric concept version of the R1. The car would be designed specifically to meet TEPCO’s business needs. TEPCO has a large fleet of vehicles to operate its power business and service its customers, and the company has set goals to reduce fuel consumption in its fleet,  and to augment the use of low-emission vehicles. TEPCO estimates that by changing over 3,000 of its vehicles to electric vehicles it can reduce its annual CO2 emissions by 2,800 tons, and cut yearly fuel cost by 190 million yen.


FHI envisions that the corporate fleet vehicle market is a promising growth area for electric vehicles. By accurately understanding the needs of such vehicles at TEPCO and accumulating additional know-how, FHI will continue improvements on electric vehicles, strive to market them to other companies and expand the use of electric vehicles.

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At the launch of the project Fuji said that the electric vehicle would have the following specifications:


·        2 seater


·        Driving distance: 80km (city-driving with the battery capacity of 8kWh)


·        Rapid charging: 15 minutes with AC200V outlet (filling up to 80% of the battery)


·        Normal charging: 8 hours with AC100V outlet


·        Battery capacity deterioration tolerance: within 20% lower than the initial capacity (after the 7-year use, over 70,000km)


TEPCO is responsible for the development and determination of specifications of the vehicle and major devices, as well as the design and manufacture of a power-charging system; and data collection and analysis of EV uses and performance


Fuji’s responsibility is to develop the specifications of the vehicle and major devices, and design develop and manufacture prototypes. The prototypes are being produced at the Subaru Technical Research Center located in Mitaka, Tokyo.