Electric car takes another step to practicality

A German company has produced a battery pack that allows an ordinary car to travel 375 miles on a single charge. It’s not a record, but is arguably the most impressive overall performance.

The record for a single charge appears to be 623 miles, achieved by a converted Daihatsu van. However, that only averaged 27 miles per hour and the vehicle could only carry the driver, with no room for passengers.

In contrast, the DBM Energy Audi A2 has all four original seats and drove at an average speed of 55 mph. That’s hardly going to leave other drivers standing on the speed limit-free German autobahns, but it certainly means the car would be practical even outside of urban locations.

Indeed, while the Daihatsu test drive was on a race track, the Audi journey was between Munich and Berlin.

The Allscarelectrics blog notes that the CEO of the company producing the vehicle has a keen eye for public relations: not only did he drive the vehicle during the test, but even offered to let waiting journalists charge their cellphone with the remaining energy at the end of the journey.

DBM says the car can be fully charged in six minutes at virtually any power socket. It says the battery system is already used by a logistics company in fork lift trucks (running 28 hours without recharging), and that it’s ready to go into large-scale production if it finds a buyer in the auto business.