Raser To Unveil Electric SUV ?  

The Salt Lake Tribune reports that low temperature geothermal power company Raser Technologies is branching out into a new market - electric vehicles - and making some ambitious claims about a 100 mpg vehicle available in 2011 - Utah company to unveil new electric-powered truck/SUV.

How does an auto innovator generate enthusiasm among environmentalists for a massive truck or SUV that drinks gasoline like a thirsty camel?

One way is to replace the eight-cylinder power plant with a powerful electric motor assisted by a fuel-sipping four-cylinder engine that makes electricity for the vehicle if its batteries run low.

Raser Technologies, the Provo-based geothermal power development company, will unveil such a vehicle at the Society of Automotive Engineers World Congress, which meets in Detroit later this month.

Raser won't say what the prototype vehicle is until the conference begins. The company's Web site shows it as a Hummer H3. But an artist's drawing suggests the vehicle may be a full-size pickup.

Whatever it is, Raser's claims for the vehicle are jaw-dropping. In its all-electric mode, the vehicle runs up to 40 miles before its three lithium-ion batteries must be recharged. If the truck or SUV goes farther than 40 miles, it makes its own electricity, allowing the vehicle to travel up to 400 miles. Top speed is 100 miles an hour.

A turbine powered by the four-cylinder engine makes the electricity to recharge the batteries while the vehicle is moving. With the engine operating, the vehicle is said to get more than 100 miles per gallon, while emitting few pollutants. To recharge the vehicle overnight, a power cord is simply plugged in.

"Our power train makes a pickup truck greener than a Prius," David West, vice president of marketing at Raser, said Thursday.

Raser isn't an obscure company with outsized ideas and few credentials. Last month, the company began transmitting electricity generated at its new geothermal plant in Millard County to the city of Anaheim in Southern California. It is also developing new geothermal projects in Nevada, New Mexico and Oregon.

It began developing hybrid electric vehicles in 2003, hoping the Army could be persuaded to install electric power trains in their Hummers. With the war in Iraq absorbing most of its budget, the Army lost interest, even though electric motors are more efficient than diesel or gasoline engines and can be as muscular.

Despite the setback, the experience wasn't a waste of time. West said Raser was able to advance its technology to a point that, two years later, the company formed a consortium of technology companies to develop hybrid electric vehicles further. Its partners included Pacific Gas and Electric Co., Southern California Edison and Austin Energy in Texas. They focused on big vehicles because American consumers prefer pickups and SUVs, West said.

Last year, Pacific Gas and Electric said it would buy two hybrid SUVs from Raser. PG&E thinks the vehicles may solve a problem bedeviling most electric utilities. The company envisions a time when thousands of hybrid vehicles are being recharged overnight, soaking up energy when power plants have plenty of capacity that isn't being used.

"Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles are a practical solution to meet the challenges associated with climate change by reducing fuel costs, greenhouse gas emissions and our dependency on petroleum-based fuels," Andrew Tang, senior director of smart energy at PG&E, said at the time.

West said the Raser vehicle will undergo a series of field tests after the conference. Vehicles could be available in showrooms by 2011, if the technology pans out.