Integral horsepower motors on the rise

Integral horsepower motors used in electric vehicles -- a negligible market in 1978 -- will constitute nearly 22 percent of total US motor and generator sales in 1990, according to Predicasts Inc., a Cleveland-based business information and market research firm.

An industry study recently made public by Predicasts Research Group projects that sales will climb from under $8 million in 1978 to $230 million in 1985, then jump to $5 billion by 1990. Predicasts' researchers expect electric motor vehicles to represent 10 percent of all vehicles produced in the United States by the end of the decade -- roughly 1.6 million units.