150 km/charge scooter - ALEL(France) seeks investors!

- Do the French have a word for eco-entrepreneur?

Well - it's certainly le mot juste to describe the EV-angelical Philippe Borges of ALEL creators of the Scooler - a uniquely stunning-looking, high-performance, long-range(100 km) electric e-scooter. Yes, we adore the look of the Scooler - it's so stylishly futuristic: Hollywood science-fiction meets classic Vespa.

At the moment the Ecoproduit" award-winning Scooler is powered by SAFT NiCad batteries but with EU anti-cadmium legislation imminent Philippe is keen to find investors to enable the company to move to NiMH and Li-ion. He's extremely confident he can extend the Scooler's range to 150 km and beyond.

Here's what he told EVUK:

"2005 will be the end for Ni Cad and a big year for EV development. We are ready to upgrade to NiMH. Fuel cells aren't ready yet at all and won't be for another 10 years, they have lots of problems with membrane life/cost, system security, dimension etc..
We are ALREADY studying other batteries technologies to develop more models !

In fact we are currently working with Chinese NiMH and French Ni-Zinc and are also actively working on a Li ion solution. At the moment the Ni Cad Scooler weighs 120 kgs - with NiMH we can get below 100kgs and with Li-ion perhaps get close to 80 kgs. We already have a 1 hour quick-charge option and that will be even faster with advanced batteries of course. Believe me, we know the 'competition' extremely well - without naming names, one original member of our team helped develop a leading brand escooter subsequently manufactured by a very well-known French carmaker. We are confident that our technology is superior to all the other major contenders - from Europe and elsewhere.

We are establishing contacts with French specialized press and TV media ! but , as I said, for the moment, it is a family business and just surviving is the compromise if we can't find investors quickly."

So: "Au secours!" is the message from Philippe: If you can help secure the future of this world-beating 'Freedom Scooter' - sorry - French Scooter, please get in touch with Philippe at ALEL(location: eastern France - nr. Chamonix) : vehiculeselectriques@free.fr