The allure of a long, sleek stretch limousine is without equal. It conjures up visions of wealth, prestige, and in-your-face glamour. And what’s more glamorous nowadays than showing your support for the environment? Numerous celebrities are now publicly supporting the use of electric vehicles. Many roll up to the red carpet in a stylish electric town car. But, unfortunately, there has been little to no development of electric limousines. Why is this? There are as many reasons as there are people hopping on the electric-vehicle bandwagon nowadays. But one thing we can do in the absence of an actual electric limousine is to scheme on the future.

Unlike a large commercial truck, which could not generate enough power solely by electricity to keep it moving at the necessary speed, and unlike more obscure types of vehicles that have limited or no viable market, electric limousines only seem logical. They are a perfect way to blend the fashion-forward, glamorous need to see and be seen with the altruistic desire to help the environment and reduce our dependence on unrenewable energy resources.

It remains to be seen when, or if, an electric limousine will be developed. If a prototype is made, interest in electric limousines will probably skyrocket. All that remains is for an opportunistic company to get their foot in the door and make this dream a reality.

The main reason for this is that limousines have not really developed along the same lines as automobiles.  Limousines are long vehicles even at their shortest.  With the actual limousines of the stretch variety that are more common nowadays, the length is even longer.  Because of that longer length, propelling it forward with any amount of economy is hard to do.  The flaws in the batteries that make electric cars annoying at times are totally exposed by the longer limousines.  This is why many of the limousine dreams regarding electrification have not come to pass.  The industry is working on a better mode of storage and that is something that will definitely spark the creation of additional electric limousine models as time rolls along.

This is not to say that companies have not tried to create electric limousines.  In fact, the truth is the opposite.  There are companies in both Europe and Japan that have experimented with the creation of limousines from 2000 onwards, but many of these projects were eventually abandoned due to poor economics.

Out of the limousine models that have been unveiled to the world, the one that is perhaps most interesting is the Electric Lithium Ion Car.  This car, known as ELIICA for short, does not look anything like a normal limousine.  It was conceived of by Professor Hiroshi Shimizu at the Japanese Keio University and is easily a monstrosity in just about every sense of the word.

It comes with eight wheels, each coming with a 55 kW hub motor that in turn is responsible for giving the car impressive 8-wheel drive.  There are no emissions from this car however, so it does pass the primary test of an electric vehicle.  In total, it outputs 470 kW (to give you a frame of reference, the average light bulb provides 0.06 kW) and is actually capable of a ridiculous 230 mph top speed.  It can travel over 200 miles on a single charge as well, so by the numbers it is actually a decent car.

The problems come with the cost.  The upfront cost of this car is easily over $300,000 and the electric charge required to power it does not actually save you that much money because of the poor efficiency.