Hot new car class--the extended range electric

Plug-in hybrids are all the rage, but pure electric cars are making a surge, with the announcement by several major car companies of new manufacturing plans for electrics. And hot off the design tables is a new class of vehicle—not a gas or diesel, not a pure electric, not a hybrid. It's the “extended range electric vehicle.” More on that later.The hottest electric vehicle out there may be the sleek Tesla Roadster (blue car above).

which is promised out next year (2009). It will cost well north of $100,000, for or five times the price of aPrius.Nissan is the latest in the electric car field, with a proposed zero emission car that will be available in limited numbers within two years and in mass production by 2012. That's what Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn told National Public Radio.He told the New York Times that what's driving Nissan's interest is that consumers appear to be ready for them, finally—even if government agencies haven't mandated the shift to cleaner, more efficient vehicles.

“What we are seeing is that the shifts coming from the markets are more powerful than what regulators are doing,” Ghosn told the Times.But it was different from the doorless golf-cart-looking vehicles that some associate with electric vehicles. The U.S. Department of Energy refers to those as NEVs, for neighborhood electric vehicles. The Hypermini fell into the class of UEVs or urban electric vehicles.

The new Nissan electric may be the same car announced in January 2008 by Renault. (Renault and Nissan are partners.) That electric car was to be built in Europe and initially sold in Israel. Some reports indicated it would be built along the lines of Renault's Megane Sport Saloon.That's a standard-looking family car, and is likely to be far more acceptable to many consumers than something looking like the Hypermini.