Fétish car whips up a WiMax frenzy

The Venturi Fétish gets its power from 7,200 lithium-ion batteries

The world's first production electric sports car will have a WiMax box inside to make it capable of online communication.

Monoco-based car maker Venturi Automobiles unveiled the Fétish at the 2005 Geneva International Motor Show.

The new model will include Intel's Alvarion pre-WiMax wireless connection box to improve the car's telemetry.

Venturi also sees WiMax as a means of remotely monitoring vehicle operation, fine-tuning the engine and even updating onboard applications.

The Fétish achieves 0 to 60mph in 4.5 seconds, has a top speed of 105mph and a range of 240 miles.

Power comes from 7,200 lithium-ion batteries weighing a total of 350kg (100 modules of 72 cells each) managed by two Intel XScale processors.

"The technological challenge in an electric vehicle is not its engine, but its batteries," said Gildo Pastor, chief executive at Venturi Automobiles.

"For more than 100 years people have been producing very good electric motors, but until now we did not know how to manage so much electrical power (58 KW/h) in a vehicle this light.

"Intel's technology gives us real-time management of these 7,200 lithium-ion batteries, which demand extremely precise monitoring."