Saab debuts first EV at Paris show

Saab will appear at next week's Paris show to debut its first EV. Dubbed the "first, practical family estate with all-electric propulsion" the 9-3 ePower wagon prototype will roll out in a 70-strong fleet for field trials in Sweden starting in Q1, 2011.

The company has come up with an extensive regimen of real-world testing aimed at getting the car market-ready. Among the chief performance indicators is a range of around 200 km from its lithium-ion battery pack.

Power comes from a compact 35.5 kWh lithium-ion battery pack set in those parts of the floorpan conventionally given over to fuel tank and exhaust system. The idea here, says Saab's release, was to optimise weight distribution to keep the driving dynamics as close as possible to those of a conventionally powered SportWagon.

Under the bonnet is a 140 kW electric motor driving the front wheels via a single-speed transmission. The company claims 0-100 km/h acceleration in 8.5 seconds, with a top speed of 150 km/h.

The ePower is a collaborative effort combining basic 9-3 SportWagon architecture with batteries from Boston Power, powertrain from Swedish company Electroengine, project manager Innovatum and Swedish energy trading peak body Power Circle.

Battery maker Boston's charter was to put particular work into high energy density for the batteries, with two major areas of benefit: range and weight. As part of the weight saving plan, they've opted for air cooling over liquid. Boston's charter also included the ability to run with full power in ambient temperatures as low as -30 degrees C -- around 10 degrees lower than the current industry standard. It's also designed to allow the car full operability with power down to as little as 12 percent of total capacity -- a much slimmer margin than competitors.

Saab wants the final car's battery pack to be good for 10 years' worth of recharge cycles in average use. It can charge from near empty in 3-6 hours off a domestic mains supply; substantially less from a high-voltage input. The power management system is a rewrite of Saab's own Trionic 8 EMS software.

The company has opted to keep the interior tone conventional, with an auto lever providing selection of 'drive', 'neutral', 'park' and 'reverse'.

The car retains the 9-3 instrument binnacle, with normal readouts replaced by EV equivalents: battery status, power consumption and driving range. The mechanical park brake has been replaced by an electric one.

The electro-hydraulic power steering and air conditioning compressor draw power directly from the battery pack. Lights and cabin ancillaries draw from their own 12-volt battery, charged from the main power pack through a current transformer

Saab also stressed in its statement that "the 9-3 ePower meets the high crash-worthiness standards that Saab applies to all its vehicles". Restricting the power pack placement to zones once occupied by fuel tank and exhaust keeps it outside the passenger compartment, encased in non-deformable structural zones.

The trial program will see hundreds of families across Sweden given the chance to evaluate the car through 2011 and 2012.

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