Mitsubishi Motors will start selling its new battery-powered car dubbed "iMiEV" in Japan this coming July while Nissan Motor plans to follow suit next year. Toyota Motor, meanwhile, says it will launch a plug-in hybrid vehicle sometime in the "early 2010s." I agree with Nissan President Carlos Ghosn, who says he is convinced that by around 2030, there will no longer be any motor vehicles powered solely by gasoline engines.

According to the information published on Mitsubishi's Web site, the iMiEV's lithium-ion battery can be charged within seven hours using a 200-volt power source or in 14 hours with a 100-volt source to its full capacity of 16 kilowatt-hours. Since the car runs 10 km for each kilowatt-hour of power it consumes, the fully charged battery will have the capacity to power the vehicle for 160 km. However, the running distance may be shortened if a certain portion of the power is used to operate accessories such as an air-conditioner. The maximum speed of the car is given as 130 kph, comparable to a vehicle powered by a small gasoline engine.

A conventional car of the size similar to that of the iMiEV runs an average 15.5 kilometers per liter of gasoline. Assuming that gasoline sells for ¥105 per liter and the fee for charging the battery during nighttime is ¥7 per kilowatt-hour, the cost of driving the battery car for 10 km will be ¥7, whereas the comparable cost for the gasoline engine vehicle will be ¥68.