Dodge “Developing” Another New Electric Car

Automotive News is reporting that Chrysler is readying an updated version of its Dodge EV concept for the Geneva auto show later this year.

Despite a solid PR launch of Chrysler’s ENVI electric vehicle group, the current Dodge EV is little more than UK-only Lotus Europa with Dodge badges and fly-yellow paint.  This new concept, however, promises to be something more.

From Automotive News:

The Dodge EV shown in September was a Lotus-derived electric sports car. Look for the show version to have more Dodge styling cues and possibly be a four-passenger coupe.

Reading between the lines a bit, then, what can we expect from Chrysler?

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Unfortunately, probably not much (see Lotus Europa, below, to get an idea of how much effort Chrysler put into the last one).

Yes, the company did just get a four billion dollar low-interest government bailout loan, but with major product issues, labor issues, and dealer franchise issues to overcome, that 4 bil will barely keep the lights on - but, who knows?  Maybe Dodge will surprise us all and produce something really revolutionary.

Also:  maybe it’ll be worse than we can possibly imagine - a truly half-hearted attempt by all involved to pay lip-service to the green movement while getting down to the business of selling V8 Dodge Ram pickups.

We’ll know soon enough.

Image Credits: by cmonville and vernieman’s Flickr photostreams, under a Creative Commons License.

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