Chrysler LLC revealed three all-electric prototype vehicles at its world headquarters in Auburn Hills, the Dodge EV, Jeep EV and Chrysler EV, promising to have one of them available in the North American markets as soon as 2010 followed shortly after by Europe. Speaking at the presentation, Chrysler LLC’s CEO Bob Nardelli had this to say:

“The introduction of the Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge electric vehicles provide a glimpse of the very near future, and demonstrates that we are serious and well along in the development of bringing EVs to market.”

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You may already know that 6,831 lithium ion batteries power the all-electric Tesla Roadster. But what about the user interface from the driver’s seat?

It turns out that the Roadster has a small touch screen to control battery charging. It provides people with the temperatures of different subsystems, and it gives a read of how the batteries’ charge translates into range and performance. …click here to read more

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Car Design News has obtained exclusive information about Franz von Holzhausen’s next career move. On Thursday of last week, von Holzhausen resigned from Mazda, where he was Director of Design at the R&D Design Center in Irvine CA, to become the Design Director at Tesla Motors.

“It’s going to be an exciting adventure,” von Holzhausen told CDN in an exclusive interview. “I’m looking forward to working at a new startup company that doesn’t have the confines of a large OEM.”

Tesla will be looking to produce a range of new cars according to the famed designer. While the Tesla Roadster was designed by Lotus, Tesla founder and Chairman Elon Musk is “looking to produce electric vehicles for the masses and wanted to bring design in house.”

According to insiders, von Holzhausen was picked just for that task. …click here to read more

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This is the first image of the forthcoming Lotus Eagle. The car has been testing for many months, but with heavy disguise, it was hard to tell what it really looked like. The car will debut later this month at the London Motor Show. This is the first of three all new models, Lotus will introduce over the next three years.

The car is a 2+2 mid engine rear wheel drive layout, using a 3.5L Toyota VVTi V6 engine. The internal codename is ‘Eagle’ but we do not know if this will be the final name once the car is put into production.

Visually, the car is immediately identifiable as a Lotus with the classic styling cues on the front fascia with the rounded air intakes, air outlets below the heavily curved windshield. This rendering seems to share similar body lines like the Tesla roadster, itself, based on the Elise and styled by a Lotus designer.

We will bring you more details on this new Lotus as they become available.

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