Chrysler plans electric car production model

Chrysler look set to follow General Motors and put its own electric car into production in 2010 based on the four-door ecoVoyager concept it showed off earlier this year. At the time, Chrysler claimed the entirely electric ecoVoyager will have a range of 300 miles. Put that in your Volt and smoke it, GM. To be fair to GM, its …

[jonathan keith]

My eyes!

Why do designers feel the need to make electric or hybrid cars look so bloody ugly? They don't have to - look at the Lightning: http://www.lightningcarcompany.co.uk/

[Anonymous Coward]

Ooooh I take back everything I said about the Chevvy Volt

This really is ugly. It's like a chromed banana-flavoured rollerskate.

Whatever happened to the Chrysler designers who came up with cars like Batman's weekend getaway car - the Atlantic concept?

http://www.kudzumonthly.com/kudzu/jan03/Atlantic.html

[Patrick Weber]

Chunky monkey?

That study looks anything but aerodynamic to me. More like big and heavy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep definitley fits the bill of an Eco Car

It's dead ugly!

[M]

Nice

I really like it. I most certainly would buy one.

[Michael]

Design

Designers need to learn that a "green" car needs to be just different-looking enough so that people can identify that "hey, that person's driving a 'green' car! look how environmentally responsible they are!'. That's why the Prius outsells the Accord hybrid by a silly margin. People want other to know they drive a hybrid.

However, employ too radical a design, and people just think it looks like ass.

A little more of the former, a little less of the latter, please.

[Brad]

They still don't get it

These americans have to get over the idea of fat SUVs. Also, hydrogen is dead.

[Eric]

@My eyes

Because the ugliness is what sells the Prius. People driving eco-friendly cars want everybody to know how eco-friendly they are.

[b]

BRING IT ON!!!

more electic cars, much more please!

..and with a generator charging a totally electric drive, none of this "hybrid" nonsense!!!

cheers,

bill

p.s. stuff and nonsense: http://www.eupeople.net/forum

[WTF]

Question

If it's electric, why does it have a (big, ugly) radiator grill?

[Visual Echo]

Does it have a plug?

Can I plug it into a power outlet? No plug, no buy!

[Bounty]

Is it just me

or is that car huge? If that car is small, it might maybe look ok. But either they put a tiny headed person in there, or that thing is massive.

[Steven Hunter]

Pic 1 on page 2

Why in God's name is that woman's seat so far back? She's like 6' back from the steering wheel... Who has limbs that long?!

@Bounty - No, that thing is just GD-MF huge... That's so our fat American asses can fit in there.

[Pyros]

I'll just wait...

...until Chrysler actually makes an electric pickup the size and power of a Dodge Ram.

Or at least a Jeep Safari. That'd be a huge help in Colorado.

[Dick]

No volts 'til 2010 either

"To be fair to GM, its Chevy Volt, which can travel 40 miles on a battery charge, was this week being touted as a model that's ready for production"

If it's ready for production what are they gonna do between now and late 2010 when they are scheduled to start trying to sell it? Poor old GM just doesn't have what it takes any more. By the time that clunker hits the streets Toyota will have have been kicking their hybrid ass with the Prius for 9 years (13 if you count sales in Japan). It's going to take a much bigger leap of technology to be a winner in 2010.

[Evil_Medic]

The car is missing something...

Has anyone else noticed the lack of door handles in all photos?

Glasses: cos' I don't need them!

[Anonymous Coward]

We're halfway there already

Either that woman is a perfectly proportioned midget or they have deliberately built the car so big as to cover most of the 300 miles without moving.

[PunkTiger]

@Bounty

It's something Chrysler likes to call "cab-forward design" (http://www.allpar.com/corporate/cab-forward.html), but it's taken to the extreme with this car (the bottom corner of the windscreen is over the center of the front wheel, for crying out loud).

I agree with the others here who think the design is a bit too radical for a production car (which is a nice way of saying it's butt-ugly).

My guess is that these all-electric cars are large because of the space needed to store all the batteries and still give you a usable boot/trunk.

[J]

Yuck...

Hideous.

And unless that woman was very badly photoshopped into the picture (or is she a pygmy standing in there?), that ugly thing is also humongous, which completely defeats the green purpose of a "four-seater", as it's described.

[Anonymous Coward]

Terrible terminology...

I hope this

"One of the models, the paper says, drops the ecoVoyager's fuel cell in favour of a petrol-powered generator that kicks in to feed the electric engine with volts when the battery drops below a certain point. This is the same approach taken by the Volt."

was not the product of a scribe at The Reg!

Feed the "Electric engine" with "volts"? Someone needs a good smack with the clue-bat. It's an "electric motor", not an "electric engine". The generator that produces the electricity is powered by an "engine".

What's the difference? Well someone once put it to me this way, "engines produce power to do work.. motors use power to do work".

"One of the models, the paper says, drops the ecoVoyager's fuel cell in favour of a petrol-powered generator that kicks in to feed electricity to the motor when battery levels drop below a certain point. This is the same approach taken by the Volt."

See the difference?

[adobob]

Genepax Water Cars

http://www.fuelcelltoday.com/online/news/articles/2008-06/Genepax-unveils-water-energy-fuel-cell

yes, the hydrides are also a fuel, but environmentally in every way a billion times cleaner than a petrol or hybrid car. but GM, Shell, Exxon etc will not allow such cars to exist for the obvious reason that they would be signing their own death warrants.

[Stephen Bungay]

I like it...

I like it. Make the fuel cell version and that would definitely be my next vehicle.

[Anonymous Coward]

Won't look like this in production, will it?

Why the hell do concept cars always have such far-out futuristic looking styles, and then when it comes to production they look like every other car? Bait and switch!

[The Reg-ular]

Little people

That model in the driver seat is must be a member of Little People of America (I'm all for modeling industry's promotion of non-conformist body types). Either that, or s/he's too young to drive.

For large sedans and SUVs, 20 inches is the bare minimum wheel diameter for da-shizzleness in America. According to advanced mathematical models using geometric transformations and taking into account typical human physiology, that person is approximately three and a half feet (1.07m) tall.

This is a typical marketing tactic. If this person modeled jewelry, a half-carat promise ring would look like the Hope Diamond.

Like all green cars, they are not made for tall and/or fat folks (i.e., most Americans). I suspect they are made like this on purpose. Subjecting oneself to the cramped ride at least twice daily is a modern form of self-flagellation engineered to appeal to those suffering from Liberal Guilt.

Of course it has not a plug; you might as well put a "clean coal addict" bumper sticker on it.

It should sell well on both American coasts but nowhere else. Unfortunately, it will never have the range to get from one to the other.

[Anonymous Coward]

My eyes!

When, oh when, are Chrysler designers going to come up with a car design that isn't butt ugly, inside as well as outside. I thought the Dodge Magnum was ugly... actually it's FUGLY... but this thing is even worse...

Paris cos I need to see something worth looking at

[Anonymous Coward]

Urr, you've all forgotten something

Chrysler will be out of business by 2010, so this is all a pipe dream. I bet Cerebus are kicking themselves they bought the sucker now.....

[Steve B]

If it is anything like my toothbrush..

It will be OK for the first year and then when the warranty expires the batteries will start to suffer only offering 200 miles then 100 etc all at a top speed of 15 mph apart from the 10 second burst of 60mph when you first turn on.

[Anonymous Coward]

Does my bum look big in this???

looks a bit light at the rear end?... no lessons learned from the Audi TT... looks like the rear is due for lift off... either that or they limit its speed to say, useless.

[Tom]

err

Don't shoot! I actually quite like it, it's just how I imagined an electric car would look when I was a wee nipper. Not that i'd have one, but it's deffiantley agreable!

[Anonymous Coward]

Photoshop

I think the passenger has been photoshopped into the car. It's on a rotating display, and they usually don't let models sit in the cars on show like that. Plus, she is obviously an adult, but as commented on, otherwise ridiculously small. So, photoshop.

I don't mind the shape - kinda moon-buggyish - except for the rear, which is butt ugly.

[Luke Wells]

Electic and looking crap go hand in hand

Why is it that car manufacturers have to make their electric and / or hybrid cars look so stupid? (Toyota Prius, Honda Insight etc)

Only Lexus seems to be able to comprehend that people might want to choose a car .... and be able to have the exact same car with either a standard combustion engine or a hybric.

So why currently if you want a hybrid car, you have to look like an idiot driving around in a car that looks like it was designed by a 5 year old for transporting disabled animals. Oh I know why.... because if you buy hybrid/electric then you are an idiot because they are a false economy

[Anonymous Coward]

appearances...

** People want other to know they drive a hybrid. **

Only people who value appearance over other more common-sense things (I'm talking about all you SUV/Hummer people...) would buy an hybrid or an electric car for those reasons.

I like to think most people buy hybrid or electric cars because they want to avoid petrol and its consequences (related to petrol used for fuel...). Unfortunately, many people don't get it.