The Detroit Electric company appeared on CNN yesterday to announce that they plan to bring not one, but two EVs to market by 2010.
Appearing on the CNN Corner Office Detroit Electric CEO, Albert Lam, announced the pricing and range of the two EVs that his company plans to launch in 2010.
At the moment the company are offering two versions of the same car.
- The “City Range”
100 Mile Range
$23,000-$26,000 US - The “Extended Range”
200 Miles Per Charge
$28,000-$33,000 US
At that price, it certainly looks a good deal. The spec sheet is impressive too, with a top speed of well over 100 mph and a 0-60 time of less than 8 seconds. The car’s specs on the website look really good. There’s little mention on the website though of ordering or who will stock it. Nor where you can go for a test-drive.
CNN video after the jump, plus more about Detroit Electric
An interesting point here is that the CEO of Detroit Electric used to work at Lotus cars, the famous UK tuning and sports car company. They’ve been mentioned several times in relationship to electric cars. One of the most famous being the design team’s involvement with the Tesla sports car, which uses the Lotus Elise as a design starting point (but in fact uses completely different panels throughout). Interestingly two weeks ago, this video appeared on Youtube of a Regular petrol-powered Lotus Elise racing a Detroit-Electric custom-modified Lotus Elise. The electric model completely trounces the petrol one.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HsNDvEr8OY&hl=en&fs=1]
On CNN yesterday the company’s CEO outlined their plans to bring the Detroit Electric to the market in 2010.
Embedded video from CNNMoney.com Video
In a related story to the CNN appearance, Detroit Electric are now looing for up to 150 US dealers to help sell and maintain the Detroit Electrics when they come out next year.
As far as I’m aware, no-one has actually test-driven one yet. If you know of a test-drive, please let me know as I’d be interested in how the car fared.
I guess time will tell, but it does look like the great Detroit Electric (whose name has been synonymous with electric cars since the 1900s) will produce a consumer level EV again.
All I do know is that the new Detroit Electrics won’t be anything like the old models!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tzc0Men–qc&hl=en&fs=1]
On a final note, I noticed that the Detroit Electric website ends up pointing at a .co.uk domain. This may be some freak of the Internet, but it does seem to point to a UK part to the business. Given that the CEO is a former Lotus employee perhaps we’ll see the Detroit Electric in the UK sooner rather than later. The specifications certainly seem to point to a European-friendly market. I’m going to keep my fingers crossed as it looks really good.