Chrysler Town and Country EV (left) Dodge EV (center) and Jeep EV concepts represent Chrysler's shot at a future.
 
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

In hopes of creating some buzz about the company that doesn't have to do with who might be buying it or how soon it might collapse from lack of funds, Chrysler LLC is bringing its three recently unveiled electric vehicle concepts to the Los Angeles Auto show this week.

There won't be a press conference or any big announcements from the company during the media preview days Wednesday and Thursday, but the three Chrysler EVs will be on the stand for oohing and aaahing and, the company, hopes, photos and stories.

We wrote a bit about the cars when they were first introduced in Michigan in late September, and we happily would have taken the bait and written about them again when the LA show's media days commence.

But we got an early peek last week at a special program Chrysler's ENVI program for advanced technology vehicles (it stands for ENVIronmental) hosted for a few media types at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, so we're going to write about them a few days before they go on display for the rest of the crowd.

The cars are a battery-electric "Dodge" EV built from a Lotus Europa and "extended-range EV" versions of a Town and Country minivan and a Jeep Wrangler 4-door, both with 40 miles of all-electric range on an electric drive system whose batteries are "replaced" by juice from an on-board internal combustion generator once the battery charge is depleted.

All three are first-phase demonstration vehicles, said Lou Rhodes, ENVI's president and ranking engineer. That means that they started life as regular production models with gas engines and conventional drivetrains and were converted - a process that requires some compromises be made.

The compromises were hard to find, though, as all three are nicely finished vehicle with no dangling wires or exposed components (there were some test modules installed in the trunk of the Dodge EV that wouldn't be there in a production model, but there were nicely  hidden, covered in the same material as lined the rest of the trunk.)

The Town and Country wasn't working, though, and the Jeep didn't have the ICE generator installed so was running only on battery power. Rhodes said the ENVI team has built "multiple models" of each in recent months and had simply run out of time to finish the LA Auto Show cars before it was time to ship them.

The reason there are multiple models is that Chrysler  already has started on a plan to to have 100 of the cars on the road for real-world testing over the next two years-Rhodes said the plan is for 50 next year and 50 the year after, with one model ready for limited volume retail production sometime in 2010.

Nobody will say which model is the leading candidate for production, but we'd guess that the Town and Country would be a safe bet.

It is large enough to handle the extra weight and size of an EV's battery pack, and a range-extended EV model (or RE-EV) would give Chrysler - already king of the minivan segment -a unique entry in the growing electric car segment.

Just A Ploy?

Rhodes is an engineer and while he's got a lot of retirement money (and, we expect, bonus and incentive bucks and other potential future income) tied up in Chrysler's future, his job isn't to worry about finances but to build vehicles that people will want to buy - something Chrysler's a bit short of these days.

Still, we asked him how, with the economy collapsing, the auto industry collapsing faster and Chrysler's very existence being questioned daily in the mainstream and financial media, he can remain serious about his job.

Isn't ENVI just a smoke screen to make the politicians who control potential auto industry bailout funds more likely to end send some cash Chrysler's way?

How, we asked, can Chrysler afford to finance development of a whole line of electric vehicles when it can't afford to keep plants open and workers employed?

The financial struggle, he replied, is for others to worry about.  He insisted that there's been no cut-back of funding for ENVI and no indication that Chrysler's bosses are anything but serious about moving forward with the project.

The question shouldn't be whether the company can afford to pursue green initiatives, but whether it can afford not to.

"There's always been product that has turned Chrysler around," he told us. "This is some of the product that will do it for the company in the future."

We hope so.

Now let's take a look at the cars.

Tags: ford, gm, lotus

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By - Hybrid Guy
Bio: My fascination for hybrid cars came about long ago. I've been living green before gas hit $1/gallon. It's really a way of life and I hope I can share with you all I know about Hybrid Cars.
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