E-dragsters go for gas-powered records

Not everyone in the gas-powered crowd is convinced electric vehicles are the next big thing.

"I certainly don't see them challenging for professional records in the near future," said Graham Light, senior vice president of racing operations at the NHRA. "We don't have a blind eye to new technology, new innovations and new methods of doing things" but "at this point I don't see a strong movement toward electric cars."

But electric vehicle racers say people like Light are out of the loop. They say rapid advances in battery technology will give EVs a shot at drag-racing records.

"This is a disruptive technology and there is a lot of room for improvement in this area," said Ric Fulop, founder and vice president of business development for A123, the maker of KillaCycle's batteries.

In December, the KillaCycle will receive a second-generation battery pack that will have twice as much juice as its current 374-volt system, giving it close to 1,000 horsepower. Fulop said he believes the KillaCycle can break the drag racing motorcycle record within the next year.

Electric drag racers are test-driving the technology that will eventually spill over into mass production cars, analysts say.

Today's hybrid cars, like Toyota Motor Corp.'s Prius, use nickel metal hydride batteries, which cost less than lithium-ion batteries.

But the price of lithium-ion is expected to drop. In addition, the latest generation of batteries offers a higher rate of conductivity and takes less time to charge — the KillaCycle's battery pack can be juiced up in five minutes. New materials also mean the battery is less prone to overheating and explosions — a danger of earlier generations.

Experts say lithium-ion batteries that will power a car tens of thousands of miles over their lifetime and deliver more horsepower are on the horizon.

The rechargeable lithium-ion battery market, which today mainly powers consumer gadgets, is worth an estimated $4 billion to $6 billion. That's expected to mushroom to between $9 billion and $11 billion by 2011 as the technology becomes more widely used by the military, medical and automotive industries, according to analysts at Frost & Sullivan.

The Chevrolet Volt, which is expected to be released in 2010, is a consumer hybrid that uses gas to power a charger and can travel 640 miles on a tank of gas and up to 40 miles on one electric charge. The vehicle will run on a lithium-ion pack similar to the one used by the KillaCycle.

Dube and other EV racers say electric cars aren't just about 2-cent-a-mile transportation, lessening reliance on foreign oil or curbing global warming. They're also about performance.

"For electric cars to matter, people have to buy them," he said. "If you have a car that is faster than everyone else's, if it's electric so be it, but people will buy it."

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