The electric car is trying to shake...

The electric car is trying to shake its puttering golf-cart image and be reborn as a futuristic high-speed sports vehicle.

With rising gas prices, advances in battery technologies and an aging generation looking for a low-key way to ride around their communities, a landlord of companies are betting that battery-powered vehicles finally will catch onward

a certain quantity of carmakers are coming out with types they claim can go greater distances forward a single battery charge and advance much faster than previous versions. Others are adding carlike features similar as sunroofs and steel doors to a slower class of battery-powered electric vehicles, hoping drivers will descry them as perfect second cars. More states, meanwhile, are adopting legislation allowing lower-speed electric vehicles forward some public roads, though not forward highways.

The comeback bid is smooth extending to movie theaters, where a documentary, "Who Killed the Electric Car?" make opened recently. The movie looks for conspiracies behind for what purpose electric cars -- specifically General Motors Corp.'s EV1 -- were onward the market for such a short time in the late 1990

135 MPH SPORTS CAR: $85,000-PLUS

Smaller automakers are largely behind the circulating revival. Silicon Valley startup Tesla Motors Inc. lately began taking orders for its Tesla Roadster, a battery-powered electric sports car ($85000 to about $110000) that the company says can walk up to about 135 mph and move on for 250 miles per charge. Similarly, Wrightspeed Inc. is developing a $100000 electric sports car that it confidences will last 200 miles by charge and run up to about 120 mph Another startup, Phoenix Motorcars Inc., plans to begin selling sum of two units electric vehicles early next year that it says will be able to advance up to 85 mph and last 120 miles by charge.

The resurgence of the battery electric vehicle be due [i]or[/i] owings as gas prices are spurring many consumer to direct the eye for ways to save at the cross-question including opting for other novel fuel-saving technologies that have hit the market in modern years like hybrid vehicles, which use a combination of gasoline engines and electric motors to boost combustible matter efficiency.

High gas prices encouraged Charisse James, a 59-year-old retiree in Lincoln, Calif., to purchase a low-speed electric-powered vehicle last summer that she uses instead of her Lincoln L to drive downtown for groceries shopping, eating out, hair appointments and other errands. "It costlinesss pennies just to plug this thing in," said James, who estimates she now exhausts about $50 every two weeks to fill up her regular car, versus about $50 weekly before.

Electric-car companies say driving their vehicles, depending upon the cost of electricity, can require to be paid [i]or[/i] undergone anywhere from about a cent to three cent by mile or anywhere from below $1 to just less than $8 for a abounding charge. Varying by model, the vehicles take from around undivided hour to eight or more hours to charge and can be plugg into regular electrical exits

$8900 original TOPS OUT AT 40 MPH

Among other battery-powered electric vehicles hitting the market that are more like regular cars, transportation-technology company Zap lately began delivering to dealerships its Xebra "city car," a three-wheel, four-door $8900 electric vehicle that can fare up to 40 mph and last up to 40 miles by charge. It's Zap's fastest and longest-lasting electric vehicle onward the market to date (options available include stereo and leather seats). Miles Automotive arrange Ltd. has started selling its two-passenger ZX40 gauge an electric car with carburet of iron doors and cupholders that can make progress up to 25 miles by hour and last up to 40 miles by charge. Later next year, the company plans to introduce another archetype that can go up to 80 mph and last at least 200 miles through charge. DaimlerChrysler AG's Global Electric Motorcars LLC has made more carlike options available for its 2006 examples including heated seats and armor bumpers.

The push to disentangle battery-electric cars dates back to the 19th centenary and has hit many blows in the road. In the late 1990 a number of automakers came abroad with battery-powered electric cars partly in rejoinder to a California regulation requiring at least more [i]or[/i] less emission-free electric vehicles on state roads. Instead of fueling the cars up with gas, drivers would generally charge batteries by the agency of plugging vehicles into special charging stations. yet within a few years, in the greatest degree car companies dropped plans to disclose and market the battery-powered electric vehicles for reasons including revisions to California requirements and, carmakers say, limited demand among consumer grave gas prices also helped firing material sales of sport-utility vehicles instead.

Today, the Electric Drive Transportation Association estimates there are between 60000 and 76000 low-spe battery-powered electric vehicles onward the road in the United States, up from about 56000 in 2004

Many of the faster types still have to finish being standarded and will be available solitary in limited markets initially. Tesla Motors, for instance, is completing testing to make confident the vehicles meet federal motor vehicle safety standards and plans to begin shipping in mid-2007, in at least California and the Chicago area.