ENERGY

Electric Vehicle Battery Pact Set: The U.S. Advanced Battery Consortium has signed a $1.1-million, 12-month research agreement with the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in Berkeley for the development of advanced batteries for electric vehicles. Under the agreement, LBL will conduct fundamental research on lithium-polymer electrolyte cells, an electrochemical power source with the potential to make electric vehicles both competitive and commonplace in the future. The USABC was formed by Chrysler Corp., Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. in 1991. It has joined with the Electric Power Research Institute and the Department of Energy in a four-year, $260-million joint government/industry research project to develop a new generation of batteries for electric vehicles.