Everyone's talking about electric vehicles nowadays, this particular brand of products being set to become quite successful and popular in the future, especially if the rather high price points start to drop. However, right now, most future EVs are private, generally small-size vehicles, but it would seem that things might change, the “winds” of innovation starting in Japan.

So, as our colleagues from TechOn inform us, a rather large group of companies and organizations, including Keio University, Isuzu Motors Ltd, the Kanagawa prefectural government and others, have just announced the fact that they're actively involved in developing a new type of bus that's able to use just electricity for transporting numerous people in urban environments.

Apparently, the main target this project has set for itself is that of prototyping an electric bus that has a flat and low-height floor based on the "Eliica," an electric vehicle developed by Keio University. Isuzu Motors will design the body, and Toshiba Corp intends to provide its Li-ion secondary battery with a capacity of 120kWh.

According to the preliminary developments, it would seem that the electric bus will run 150km per charge, which is more than enough, simply because, in Japan, the travel distance of a normal shuttle bus is about 120km per day.

Of course, it remains to be seen just how soon this project will turn into a real vehicle, but we certainly hope that it won't be that far away in the future, simply because such an electric bus would find numerous applications for itself all over the world. The price might also be an issue, but given the fact that we'll probably be faced with a very rapid adoption of electric vehicles (due mainly to the world depleting its oil reserves), this issue will not even be that important, ultimately.


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