A Tesla-Like All-Electric Sports Car

Today on CNBC, Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli revealed a Tesla-like all-electric performance sports car called the Dodge ev along with three other vehicles operating either partially or entirely on an electric powertrain. The four vehicles are Chrysler's ENVI electric car program, and include an extended-electric Chrysler minivan, a new "gated community" electric called "the peapod" and a Jeep Wrangler four-door. The ev, the first of the four unveiled, not only operates entirely on plug-in power like the Tesla Roadster and appears to have similar performance numbers, also has some striking visual similarities with the Tesla. And why shouldn't it? While the Tesla's built on the Lotus Elise, the Dodge ev appears to be based on the Lotus Europa.

Which draws more juice from the electric grid, a big-screen plasma television or recharging a plug-in hybrid car?

The answer is the car. But the electricity draw by plasma televisions is easing the minds of utility company executives across the nation as they plan for what is likely to be a conversion of much of the country's vehicle fleet from gasoline to electricity in the coming years.

Rechargeable cars, industry officials say, consume about four times the electricity as plasma TVs.

But the industry already has dealt with increased electric demand from the millions of plasma TVs sold in recent years. Officials say that experience will help them deal with the vehicle fleet changeover.

So as long as the changeover from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles is somewhat gradual, they should be able to handle it in the same way, Mark Duvall, program manager for electric transportation, power delivery and distribution for the Electric Power Research Institute, said Tuesday.

"We've already added to the grid the equivalent of several years' production of plug-in hybrids," Duvall said at a conference on electric vehicles in San Jose. "The utilities, they stuck with it. They said, 'All right, that's what's happening. This is where the loads are going, and we're going to do this."'

Automakers, such as General Motors Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp. , are planning to bring rechargeable vehicles to the market as early as 2010. But speakers at the Plug-In 2008 conference say it will take much longer for them to arrive in mass numbers, due in part to a current lack of large-battery manufacturing capacity.

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Electric cars have been around for almost 170 years, but it's not just the limitations of battery power that have thwarted their more widespread use. Since Scottish businessman Robert Anderson pioneered the first electric carriage in the 1830s, most electric vehicles have lacked one of the key markers of auto success: good looks. Just take a look at La Jamais Contente, designed by Belgian Camille Jénatzy in 1899, or Billard and Zarpe's space-age oddity, the Elektra King (1961). Even today's models — the REVA, or Zap!'s Xebra — are proof that the best adjective to describe most electric cars remains quirky.

Now two new models show that green can be given a devastatingly cool makeover. Britain's Lightning GT and the U.S.-built Tesla Roadster both reach 60 m.p.h. in 4 seconds or less, their makers claim, with top speeds approaching 130 m.p.h. The Lightning GT — unveiled at London's International Motor Show last week and set to be available from the end of 2009 — sports an impressive, sleek and sexy design, drawing on Aston Martin's classic British look. Tesla, which launched its hot, little open-top two-seater a couple of years ago, has already sold out of the 2008 model and is eagerly taking reservations for 2009. Battery power has rarely, if ever, looked this good.

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Larry Horsley loves that he doesn't buy much gas, even though he drives his '95 Chevy S-10 back and forth to work each day.

Horsley, a self-described do-it-yourselfer, simply plugs his truck into an electric wall outlet in his Douglasville, Georgia, garage and charges it overnight, instead of buying gasoline refined from mostly imported oil.

"If I can keep a dollar from going overseas, I'll spend two dollars," he said. The whole conversion, including the truck, cost him about $12,000, which parts dealers say is about standard.

Another Atlanta-area tinkerer, David Kennington, converted his Honda Civic del Sol from gasoline to electric for a different reason: "I'm a raging greenie," he said.

Both Horsley and Kennington are fed up. They're among a growing number of Americans who are refusing to wait for big-car manufacturers to deliver mainstream electric vehicles, called EVs. Not only have they rebelled against the status quo by ripping out their gas-guzzling engines and replacing them with zero-emission electric motors, they say just about anyone can do it.

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