Auto Evolution

A quiet revolution begins this winter. After decades of false starts, thousands of electric cars will hum down U.S. roads to challenge the supremacy of the gasoline-powered automobile.

These electric cars won’t be mere science projects. Models such as the Chevrolet Volt and Nissan LEAF—the first electric cars to arrive—are designed to be practical and relatively affordable. They’ll thumb their aerodynamic noses at every gas pump in town, while they deliver the equivalent of 100 mpg or more. Plug-in hybrids, such as the Volt, will have near-zero emissions. Pure electric vehicles (EVs), such as the LEAF, will emit zero tailpipe pollutants. (The LEAF doesn’t even have a tailpipe.)

Of course, electric cars still produce carbon dioxide and other pollutants—in a roundabout way—because most U.S. electricity is derived from coal or other fossil fuels. But multiple independent studies confirm that electric cars are far more environmentally friendly than are traditional vehicles. Electricity also is much less expensive than is gasoline or diesel, and if you can combine an electric car with hydroelectric, solar or wind power, you can achieve environmental nirvana.

But electric cars aren’t for everyone—yet.

THE PRICE IS RIGHT? The lowest priced EVs and plug-in models will cost vastly more than will a comparably sized gas-only model, even after a lavish $7,500 federal tax credit. If you include that credit, the compact LEAF—a hatchback that has a roughly 100-mile driving range—will start at $25,280. (The MSRP is $32,780.) The post-tax-credit price still is $10,000 more than that of a well-equipped Nissan Versa hatchback.

The Volt is the world’s first mass-market plug-in hybrid. It manages 30 to 50 miles on electricity before it switches seamlessly to gasoline power. The Volt’s gas engine generates electricity to power the car but adds power to the wheels mainly at speeds above 70 mph. The Volt will cost even more than the LEAF will—$41,000, or $33,500 after the tax credit. (Depending on where you live, state credits might trim up to $5,000 more off the price of any qualifying electric car.)

To ease the financial blow, General Motors and Nissan will offer leases of $350 per month for 36 months on their electric cars. That’s a sweetheart deal: The Volt, for example, would cost at least $800 a month to buy with no trade-in and a $2,500 down payment.

The Volt and the LEAF arrived in a handful of states last December; their makers say neither car will be available in all 50 states until the end of 2011.

The huge “technology premium” that it will take to own a car that is stuffed with pricey lithium-ion batteries (conventional hybrids use less expensive nickel-metal-hydride batteries) will strike many people as an unnecessary splurge. Car companies and battery-makers around the world are striving to make batteries—by far the most expensive component of electric cars—more affordable.

Jesse Toprak, who is an industry analyst with TrueCar.com, says prices could drop quickly as supply increases but that a sub-$20,000 electric car won’t happen anytime soon.

READY, SET, CHARGE. Cold dollars-and-cents calculations aren’t necessarily the prime selling point for electric cars. Experts say some buyers will choose electric cars for more-altruistic reasons—to ease pollution and global warming, and to help to cut America’s addiction to Middle East oil. Other early adopters, analysts suggest, are like tech gadget fans, who want to be the first on the block to own the latest, coolest thing. And electric cars are the iPads of the automobile world.

Count Don and JoAnn Young among the converts. The Youngs are among the barely 1,500 Americans who drive an electric car—in their case the MINI E, which is an EV version of the BMW-designed MINI Cooper. BMW chose 450 Americans in 2009 to provide feedback on a test fleet of leased MINI Es. Models such as the MINI E and others that we drove provide a telling glimpse of what consumers can expect from these newfangled cars.

The MINI E can travel 100 miles on a charge, but, as with most EVs, the car takes about 20 hours to charge on a standard 110-volt household outlet. That’s too long for time-pressed owners. So every automaker will offer an optional home charging dock. These professionally installed wall-mounted units cut charging time to 4 to 8 hours by using 240-volt current.

But if you want faster charging, you’ll have to open your wallet. A charging dock will add about $2,000 (including installation) to the purchase  price of an electric car. The good news is that the federal government will cover half of the cost of a charger up to $2,000. The bad news is that the rebate was set to expire at the end of 2010, and at press time it was uncertain whether it would be extended.

JoAnn Young has one charger at home in Shelter Island, N.Y., and one 60 miles away at her veterinary hospital in Islip, N.Y., and says she makes the commute with juice to spare. Don Young, who captains the Shelter Island ferry, defied the notion that electric cars can make only short trips by logging a 4-day, 1,019-mile journey in 2009 through Long Island, the Catskills and New Jersey. Young made regular charging stops at the homes of other MINI E owners.

“I’ve never met anyone who’s not blown away by the car,” he says. “A lot of them are motorhead, hot-rod guys. The MINI E is so fast, and I encourage them to tromp on it, and they all come back just drooling.” The drawbacks, he says, are that the E isn’t as nimble as a standard MINI is, and it carries a high lease price.

The first electric cars will be just that—cars. Ford’s Transit Connect Electric, which is a compact EV van, began leasing to commercial customers and fleets in December. A plug-in Ford Escape sport-utility vehicle is expected in 2012. Tesla and Toyota debuted the joint RAV4 EV SUV at the Los Angeles Auto Show last November and say they also plan to bring it to showrooms in 2012.

GIVEN A JOLT. Our own test-drives of several electric cars proved to us that these are nothing like the dawdling electric cars of the past. The Tesla Roadster, which is a wildly impractical two-seat convertible that costs $109,000, proved at its debut in 2008 that an electric sports car could go toe-to-toe with a Porsche or Corvette by delivering zero-to-60-mph acceleration in the 4-second range.

Tesla took what it learned from the Roadster and applied it to its Model S luxury sedan, which is scheduled to arrive in 2012. But Tesla added a new wrinkle for this more mainstream model: It is targeting a 160-mile driving range and is planning to offer battery packs that get 230 and 300 miles, respectively. That kind of range would be the longest of any EV, although experts say the battery packs also would put a serious dent in your bank account—perhaps as much as $20,000 on top of the $49,900 post-tax-credit price.

Another high-style model, the curvaceous Fisker Karma, is expected to debut by March. The $87,900 luxury sedan, which will be followed by a convertible, adopts the plug-in approach of the Volt: Fully charged, it can travel the first 50 miles on battery power alone. After that, a GM-made gasoline engine kicks in to power the car for another 250 miles.

And on the price-is-no-object front, Porsche says its 918 Spyder Hybrid will reach 78 mpg when it’s driven in its most economical mode and explode to 199 mph. Whoa! All for the eye-popping price of about $700,000. Audi, Ferrari, Lotus and Mercedes-Benz have their own six-figure, electron-enabled machines in the works.

So electric cars can be plenty fast. In part, that’s because electric motors deliver 100 percent of their torque the instant that you punch the accelerator, as opposed to gas engines, which steadily build power as engine speeds increase.

The Volt will accelerate from zero-to-60 mph in 8.8 seconds, which is in line with the acceleration of a gas-powered compact, and reach 100 mph.

POSITIVE, NEGATIVE. For all of the world-changing promise of electric cars—including the giddy feeling of driving these future-tech autos—there are issues that true believers tend to downplay.

Weight is one such issue, and it hinders energy efficiency and handling. Even EVs, which lose an internal combustion engine, pack on the pounds due to their bulky batteries. At an estimated 3,500 pounds, the LEAF weighs about 500 to 700 pounds more than a conventional gas-powered compact car does. The MINI E’s 600-pound battery pack takes up nearly its entire cargo area (and detracts from the conventional MINI’s sporty handling). Fortunately, every upcoming electric car squeezes its smaller batteries below the vehicle floor, where they don’t affect passenger or cargo space and won’t affect handling as much.

Also, although some adore the whispery, sci-fi hum of electric cars, others find them to be too quiet. In fact, electric cars are being designed to emit artificial sound to warn cyclists and pedestrians of their presence.

The LEAF’s system produces two tones: a rising hum as it accelerates to 18 mph and an intermittent warning while it backs up. However, LEAF drivers will be able to shut off the sound system each time that they start the car, which is a choice that is opposed by National Federation for the Blind. Nissan defends its approach by saying that most drivers will leave on the synthetic sound, but some call this a weak response.

“We’re strongly in favor of a constant sound,” says Clarence Ditlow, who is executive director of Center for Auto Safety. “If you leave it up to the driver to catch all dangerous situations, you have the potential for error.”

The Volt will allow drivers to press a button that will produce a low chirping-horn sound, which is accompanied by flashing lights, if they need to alert an unsuspecting pedestrian. Congress voted to impose minimum noise standards in electric cars in coming years. The bill, which at press time was expected to be signed by President Barack Obama, will ensure that drivers can’t switch off the sound.

But the biggest complaint about electric cars is the reduced driving range that cold weather causes. Automakers acknowledge that frigid weather can knock up to 30 percent from the cars’ driving range. So if you drive in, say, Chicago in January, you might squeeze only 70 miles out of a full charge on a LEAF. Driving faster than 70 mph takes a toll as well, as does heavy use of the heater or air conditioner—just like in a conventional car.

But if you drive smoothly in fair weather and in light traffic, electric cars can beat their range estimates. Nissan says the LEAF can deliver about 137 miles in ideal conditions. In other words, good driving habits apply to all cars.

LONG-RANGE FORECAST. Perhaps the biggest obstacle to electric cars is the lack of charging stations. For apartment-dwellers—particularly green-minded, big-city types who would buy an electric car if only they had someplace to plug it in—this makes owning an electric car challenging at best.

The federal government is funding an effort to install up to 12,000 public charging stations in major cities and highway corridors by the end of 2011. But that network is just getting started.

For those reasons, Nissan and other carmakers acknowledge that, for now, most EVs will need to be charged at home for commuting or around-town driving only. Barring a convenient public or workplace station, EV owners are unable to drive more than about 50 miles on average (half of the total range) before they must head home. Because cold weather or high-speed driving reduces electric mileage, owners can’t always assume that they have the maximum range with which to play around. And if you drain an EV dry, forget hiking to a filling station: You’ll need a tow truck to get to a charging outlet. Fortunately, our tests confirm what proponents note: It can take days to rack up 100 miles on short commutes, such as trips to the mall. And, of course, you can recharge every day or night.

If you are ready to shift paradigms instead of gears, there’s one final hurdle for you: the scarcity of these new-generation machines. GM says there will be only about 10,000 Volts produced through 2011, and Nissan’s U.S. division hopes to get at least 15,000 LEAFs next year from the world’s supply of 50,000. Those limited numbers have produced waiting lists and, according to market analysts, the likelihood that a few dealers will mark up already-high sticker prices. Although 20,000 people have plunked down $99 to “reserve” a LEAF online, Nissan acknowledged that some might not see a car until late 2011. (In other words, if you haven’t registered, your chances of owning a LEAF before 2012 are remote unless you’re willing to pay well above sticker price to pry one from a dealer’s hands.)

Chevy and Nissan intend to crank up production—GM in July 2010 boosted the Volt’s 2012 production target to 45,000 units, up from 30,000—but that’s a ways off.

For many consumers, the obstacles of owning an electric car will seem daunting, the advantages murky and the price too high. For now, they might be right. But a green elephant in the room—regulations—might change that. From the United States to Europe, governments are prodding automakers to dramatically boost mileage and cut carbon-dioxide emissions. It could be just a matter of time before you find yourself on the other side of the electric fence.

Lawrence Ulrich writes about automobiles for The New York Times and has reviewed cars and covered the industry for 10 years.