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Home | Green Cars News | Electric | Chrysler Disbands ENVI Electric Vehicle Group

Chrysler Disbands ENVI Electric Vehicle Group

08 November, 2009 11:08:00
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Chrysler has disbanded its ENVI team dedicated to bring electric vehicles and range-extended electric vehicles to showrooms and dropped ambitious sales targets for battery-powered cars.

The ENVI electric vehicle group has been absorbed into the regular car making group, Reuters reported.

That could be bad news for battery-maker A123 Systems, after loosing the deal to supply batteries to General Motors for the Chevy Volt earlier this year. In April Chrysler said that A123Systems will supply the lithium-ion batteries for the automaker's first-generation extended-range gas-electric and its all-electric vehicles scheduled to go on sale next year.

Around a year ago, Chrysler announced three models that made up its ENVI lineup.

The heart of ENVI's battery system is a scalable battery module, as demonstrated in ENVI's five electric-drive vehicles showcased at the 2009 North American International Auto Show in Detroit. The five vehicles included the Dodge Circuit EV, Jeep(R) Wrangler EV, Jeep Patriot EV, Chrysler Town & Country EV and the Chrysler 200C EV concept.

In August, Chrysler took $70 million in grants from the US Department of Energy to develop a test fleet of 220 hybrid pickup trucks and minivans.

But a presentation of Chrysler's five-year strategy by Marchionne on Wednesday made no mention of Chrysler's earlier electric car development plans. Marchionne told reporters that electric cars would only represent one to two percent of Chrysler's sales by 2014, equivalent to less than 60,000 vehicles.

Under the Marchionne plan, former Envi chief Lou Rhodes will become the group line executive in charge of electric car development for both Fiat and Chrysler.

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