Tokyo, Japan - Mitsubishi Motors Corp. announced it is going after the 24-hour electric vehicle (EV) range record and will make its attempt using manganese lithium-ion batteries it developed with Japan Storage Battery Co., reports Asia Pulse. The current 24-hour range record of 1,020.5 miles was set in 1996 by EV technology-developer AeroVironment Inc. in a converted Saturn coupe powered by valve-regulated lead-acid batteries (News Notes 12/10/96), the same batteries used in the first-generation General Motors EV1 electric cars. Mitsubishi plans to travel 1,240 miles (2,000 kilometers) in 24 hours, with 20-minute recharge stops, versus the 55 minute recharge stops it said would be needed for nickel-hydrogen batteries of roughly the same 27 kilowatt-hour capacity. Mitsubishi, which does not plan to offer a battery-only EV, intends to apply what it learns from the range run to batteries it will manufacture for a hybrid EV it plans to offer in fiscal 2000 (News Notes 3/29/99).