Chrysler recently announced 4 electric and hybrid electric vehicles, all developed over the last few years by special team within Chrysler, called ENVY.

I personally only pay attention to 100% electric cars, because those are most energy efficient, environmentally clean and promise to improve better then other types of alternative drivetrains.

Our of announced vehicles, Dodge EV is pure electric vehicle with range of about 150 to 200 miles.

It provides decent acceleration: 0-60 in under 5 seconds. Decent - in terms of sporty electric cars! It would be awesome for any petrol car.

Chrysler is preparing this car to sell by the end of 2010, as well as Chrysler and Jeep electric vehicles.

Seems like 2010 is the target year for many manufacturers to deliver one or more vehicles that do not produce any emissions. There is a real race unfolding in front of our eyes and we are going to witnesses and be the judges in this race. We all are going to vote by buying one or the other type of vehicle over the next few years.

I am very excited to see how “mass production of electric vehicles” race plays out.

Here is why I don’t understand hybrid vehicles:

In the best case scenario hybrid vehicles would have an optimized gasoline or diesel engine which would kick in when the battery goes low - generating more electricity and extending vehicle’s range this way. I am saying this is the best case scenario because this way engine can work on only the most optimal RPM - which is a big deal for a combustion engine - a lot of optimization potential when it should only work on one RPM.

But the fact is that - unless you can afford to go on vacation for more than 6 month a year - you won’t be driving more than 60 miles per day. This means that 99% of people will not have to drive more than 60 miles a day.

In this case, why do you want to drive a gasoline or diesel engine with you everywhere, pollute air, have to fuel it up, having shorter range because this engine takes up room in the car and adds in weight significantly?

Here is what you can do instead when you need extended range:

Imagine, you drive to work in an electric car with range of about 100 miles, plug it in every night, no pollution, only pay about 2c per mile. Then when you need to go on vacation, you just hook this trailer, plug it in and go. I bet with comparable fuel tank, you can go further than your average gasoline car goes.

I would imagine that when electric cars are popular, you can rent one of those once or twice a year when you need it. So you don’t even have to buy one of those and don’t have to store it in your garage.

Neat, isn’t it?

ZAP (Zero Air Pollution) Company and Integrity Manufacturing joined their forces and now are building a new electric car factory in Franklin, Kentucky.

ZAP already has a variety of all-electric vehicles: bikes, scooters, cars and trucks. Some of them are concepts and some are already in production.

This company used to manufacture all their vehicles in China, but from now on it is all coming back to US, thanks to the State of Kentucky, which provided the necessary tax breaks and other incentives to make the move financially attractive.

The factory is expected to begin manufacturing electric cars in 12 months from now and is going to employ up to 1,000 people initially with more job openings in the future. Web site for future employment opportunities is here.

There are two concept cars, that in my mind are more attractive than the others - ZAP Alias and ZAP X, both of which you can reserve today and they will be delivered, as the manufacturer promises, in 2009 and 2010 respectively.

ZAP Alias is a relatively affordable and yet very functional two-seater on 3 wheels. The range is 100+ miles and the top speed is about 100 mph. Check out the video of this concept.

There is almost no information about ZAP X yet, except for this picture below and the fact that it is engineered by LOTUS Design.

Think Ox is an all electric concept, which would make a nice family car.

There are 5 seats, 125 miles range, 5 star crash rating. Not sure how they got the crash rating, since it’s only a concept.

It’s light because the frame is made out of aluminum, it has a watercooled brushless electric motor, delivering up to 134 hp and overall seems like enough performance for an average family car type of vehicle.

There is a solar power panel integrated in the roof. I understand it won’t provide nearly enough power to run on it continuously, but it will still extend range a little when driving or parking under the bright sun.

Creators envision to have a fully functional computer on board for driver and passengers to be able to browse Internal, read emails, get directions, all sorts of location based services, audio & video applications and other fun stuff.

Tesla Motors already delivered 27 of their all electric roadster. They are all fitted with temporary transmission, motor and inverter. Tesla Motors started production in March 2008 using the old design, but decided to redesign the whole powertrain as soon as possible.

Now when this work has been completed, we know that the new gearbox design and implementation belongs to BorgWarner, the new transmission design is one gear as opposing to two in the old design and the new motor is about 25% more powerful. Inverter also has to support higher throughput now.

While improving power and torque, they managed to also improve range. It went from 211 to 244 miles on a single charge.

It was the agreement from the beginning of production that all customers who got temporary powertrain will be upgraded to the new one when it’s ready.

Daimler and RWE partner to bring pure electric cars and infrastructure to Berlin. Daimler AG is responsible for bringing Mercedes-Benz and Smart all electric cars. RWE AG is a utility company and their side of the deal is to setup around 500 charging locations in Berlin.

There are many companies that can produce electric cars and plug-in hybrids…  What we haven’t seen before is collaboration on such a big scale, where consumers get infrastructure that makes it much more convenient to use those electric cars.

For example you could buy Lightning GT, which can be charged in 10 minutes theoretically. But then you don’t have an electrical outlet at home that let’s you charge it that quickly and you don’t have that anywhere near your city or town.

Ideally we all want to have cars that you don’t have to worry about plugging it anywhere. E.g. you could potentially have a nuclear fusion reactor under the hood. I am hoping to see this kind of technology in my lifetime… But before we have such a huge technological breakthrough, we need a network of locations where you can plug your car in.

Having required infrastructure is a must for successful adoption of electric vehicles in the near future.

This one is from Dodge, which normally is  “nothing but cute” to me…

But this time I liked the car design, plus it’s a pure electric car, sporty, 4 passenger wagon.

The way I look at it: big enough to be useful - being able to carry 4 people, sleek enough to be cool, sporty enough to be “fun to drive” and eco-friendly - which is a very important plus, considering scary global warming.

Not sure if it actually going to end up a production vehicle some day, but Dodge needs to come up with one or two ZEV (zero emission vehicles) within just a few years, so I understand there is a good chance that something close to ZEO will be in production.

Specs:

• range 250 miles
• 0-60mph in under 6 seconds
• 268 hp
• rear wheels drive