  A class of supergravity inspired quintessence models is studied by comparing
to cosmological data. The set of considered models includes several previously
studied quintessential potentials, as well as the $\Lambda$CDM model. We find
that even though the commonly studied supergravity inspired quintessence models
fit the data better than the $\Lambda$CDM model, they are a relatively poor fit
when compared to the best fit model in the studied class. Our results suggest a
low energy scale, less than ${\cal{M}}\sim 1$ TeV, for the effective
supergravity potential.
