Collaboration in research—the ALABC:Brite-EuRam lead/acid electric-vehicle battery project

As part of its programme, the Advanced Lead-Acid Battery Consortium (ALABC) has a US $4.4 million project with European Community funding (under the Brite-EuRam programme). This has been initiated by the European members of the ALABC. The background and structure of the four-year project are described, together with some of the research results that have been obtained during the first two years of the work. While many of the individual tasks contain battery test programmes to evaluate research results, the ultimate aim of the project is to bring together the various developments into prototype advanced lead/acid batteries for electric-vehicle applications. These will be bench-tested by Eucar, the joint research body of the European motor industry.