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During the American Revolution an intrepid inventor named Ben Franklin set out on a stormy dark night with nothing more than a paper kite, long piece of string and metal door key attached to one end. His little experiment to capture lighting’s ferocious energy through transference of the wet twine that held onto that kite as it sailed high in the sky in the hopes that a bolt from Zeus himself would strike and send it’s heavenly fire down into the key, was the beginning of modern science’s never ending quest to harness the power of the gods.

Some years later Thomas Edison perfected the use of that elusive energy and captured it inside a glass encasement where a mental filament, resting in an airless environment, was set a blaze thus taking human kind out of the darkness and into an age of technological illumination.

Fast forward through the assembly lines of Henry Ford’s automobile factories where roaring engines ignited the fire of combustible gasoline and spewed forth billowing clouds of toxic fumes and choking smoke and move towards the a source of power once only thought to be useful to light bulbs, power appliances and turn on the television and radios. Always a dream but never a reality, the application of electric energy to power individual transportation vehicles has finally arrived.

Yet the nay sayers have been steadfast in their claims on several fronts.

Electric cars needed huge and heavy batteries in order to put out enough power to move a car. Not only would the batteries be too large and weigh too much for an average sized automobile, the batteries themselves could not hold enough of a charge to go the required distances to make the car practical.

There were other concerns such as the need to have an infrastructure that could accommodate electric cars. In order for the use of these electric cars to make any kind of sense it would mean that electric plug in stations would have to be as prevalent as gas stations. Efforts to do this were few and weak at best with some plug in sources showing up in local malls and occasional Cost Cos.

But with global climate crises melting our world around us and our dependence of fossil fuel ripping apart our political situation as well as our pocket books, car manufacturers finally began to listen to the clamoring of the masses. Not as much as a response to be responsible for the planet, but more for the sake of what they saw as their own financial survival.

The newest line of electric cars that have come to the American market place and they are as varied as they are quiet, clean and efficient.

Looking like a true vehicle of the future, the Aptera is a stylish, lightweight composite shelled all electric cars that, at least in the beginning, will sold in California. The price for this two seat space car is just $26,900 and they will have a hybrid for a little more at $29,900.

In what could be argued as inspired by a centipede, the creation of University professor Hiroshi Shimiz, the Elica is an eight wheeled wonder.  Elica is short for Electric Lithium-Ion Car. Tested on a track in Italy, the Elica reached a surprising 230 mph making the notion that electric autos don’t have adequate acceleration, a thing of the past. Elica is now touted as the fastest electric car in the world as well as being the fastest production car. With seating for 4, including the driver, the Elica has a battery life of 10 hours which would give you about a 124 mile range. Given the vehicles impressive speed, passenger room and travel range, the Elica is a move in the right direction. The only draw back is the price. The protype is marked at $320,000 but then you can’t have everything.

If you need something a little closer to what your can afford, then the G-Wiz might be just what you are looking for. Made by Indo-US Reva Electric Car Company, the G-Wiz is one of the best selling EV cars in the United Kingdom. The cute little 4-seater is priced at just $13,627 to $16,158 depending upon the options. Charging time is about 8 hours but it will give you access to those special parking spaces and they sell them direct to the public. No showrooms, no dealers or advertising just shop direct on their web site.

The current economic crunch has had its effects on the car industry and the electric car market has been hurt as well.

The exciting electric sports car, the Tesla from Tesla Motors, has had to shut down some dealerships and delay its newest model but that doesn’t take anything away from the company flag ship vehicle.

The Tesla electric sports car with a base price of $98,000 is still a beautiful speedster. Sprinting out of the gate with a top speed of 125 mph, the Tesla can go from 0 to 60 in just 4 seconds. You can barely blink faster. The driving range is a sweet 170 to 267 miles depending upon conditions which makes this a definite challenger to any other sports car on the road today.  Not only would you scream past most other production sports cars, but you’d do it without them even knowing it. Electric cars are after all, quiet and this one is silent, but deadly.