10 Electric Cars You Can Buy This Year!

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I just created a brand new Car Answers / EV Facts resource page. The page will be continually updated, so make sure to bookmark it for future referencing. (You can, of course, contribute to it if you’ve got some important facts to share!)

While creating that page, I thought it would be fun to also post a slideshow of 10 clean, electric cars you can actually buy this year. That’s how this post came about.

Notably, I’m leaving Tesla’s Model S and Roadster out of this slideshow, since they’re sold out (and probably beyond the price range of most of us anyway). Can you guess which 10 cars are on the list? (Write down the ones you can think of before clicking on to the next page ;) ).

Head on over to the next page to see the 1st car!

 

Zachary Shahan (2363 Posts)

I'm the director of CleanTechnica, the most popular clean energy website in the world, and Planetsave, a leading green and science news site. I've been covering green news of various sorts since 2008, and I've been especially focused on solar energy, electric vehicles, bicycling, and wind energy for the past few years. You can also find my work on Scientific American, Reuters, Think Progress, GE's ecomagination site, several sites in the Important Media network, & many other places. To connect on some of your favorite social networks, go to zacharyshahan.com or click on some of the links below.


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  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Joe-M-Wesson/1849880845 Joe M. Wesson

    dude, you need to tell us the charging options for these all electric / plugins. more info please. :)

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Homar-Torres/505150108 Homar Torres

    what should be the resale price for a transit connect electric now that they stop the program and go for Bankruptcy?

  • Siran’ger

    Is there a reason the Tesla Motors Model S was not on the list?
     

    • http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan

      Yeah, mentioned on the first page.

  • Darren

    Try digging a little deeper and actually contact the manufacture or dealer on most of these cars and you will find only 4 or 5 of these are actually available to buy today. Also, good luck if you are not in California or an east coast test market. I recently tried in Denver and only the Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf, and Mitsubishi i were really available. The Coda and Weego are pure vaporware.

  • Anne

    The apparently longer range of the Opel Ampera is not due to technical differences. The NEDC is known to be far more optimistic (too optimistic imo) than the EPA methodoloy. 

    • http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan

      thought that might be the reason.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1469491841 Chris Underwood

    You are WRONG in saying that the VOLT is not a totally electric car.  Just because it ALSO has an onboard gas powered generator.

    • http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan

      hmm, i’m not really sure how the semantics here are confusing.

      the point is that it uses gas. some of the time.

      i realize the gas powers a generator that creates electricity. but for all practical purposes, the point is that it doesn’t only run on electricity from the grid and that it DOES use some gas.

    • Bob_Wallace

      You’re pushing hard on a technicality.  You can’t drive a Volt past a fairly limited range without burning some fuel.

      No matter how many capital letters you use.

      And, actually, I believe that some of the energy from the Volt ICE is transferred to the drive train. Not all goes to run the generator.  

  • Ronald_Shenberger

    What is the status of Ford’s Transit Connect.  I understand that they offer an electric version?

    • http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan

      Haven’t seen anything on that…

    • Bob_Wallace

      “…75 mile per hour top speed and can drive up to 80 miles on a charge—matching the needs of a local delivery cycle.”
      http://www.plugincars.com/ford-transit-connect-electric 

    • Bob_Wallace

      “The Port of Los Angeles and South Coast Air Quality Management District have demonstrated a short-range heavy-duty all electric truck capable of hauling a fully loaded 40-foot (12 m) cargo container. The current design is capable of pulling a 60,000 lb (27 t) cargo container at speeds up to 10 mph (16 km/h) and has a range of between 30 and 60 miles (48 and 97 km). It uses 2 kilowatt-hours per mile (1.2 kW·h/km; 4.5 MJ/km), compared to 5 miles per US gallon (47 L/100 km; 6.0 mpg-imp) for the hostler semi tractors it replaces.[1]”
      There are also some big-boy electrics being used.  This page also has some info on electric garbage trucks.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_truck 

      Some of the big fleets (UPS, Fed EX, Pepsi) have fully electrics and hybrids in their fleets.  Electrics seem to be working well for those shorter delivery routes that many trucks service.

  • Hope

    The convertible smart looks great. And what better use of a near silent engine.

    • http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan

      Yeah, that looks pretty nice. :D

  • Jonesey

    Nerd correction: “99.99% of trips” caught my eye. 1 out of 10,000 just didn’t seem reasonable. Looking at the BTS report, it looks like 99% (1 out of 100) is the right number (2.3 billion vehicle trips over 50 miles, out of 233 billion total vehicle trips).  Still a remarkable percentage.

    • http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan

      Hmm, thanks, let me take another look. I did come up with that part quite late at night.

    • http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan

      Hmm, yeah, it was late. 

      I’m finding 411 billion trips: http://www.bts.gov/publications/highlights_of_the_2001_national_household_travel_survey/html/section_02.html

      And 2.6 billion long-distance trips: 
      http://www.bts.gov/publications/highlights_of_the_2001_national_household_travel_survey/html/executive_summary.html So, over 99% are below 50 miles, but certainly not over 99.99%.Thanks!

      • Bob_Wallace

        So this is saying that the average driver goes more than 50 miles per day about four days a year?

        I just checked and I can rent a car for $50/day – unlimited mileage – here.  Have no idea if that’s a standard price as I haven’t rented a car in years.  But if it’s representative it would mean that most people could drive a 50 mile range electric and annual rental would add only $200 to the cost of making their personal transportation not-range-limited.

        • http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan

          Yeah, thanks for the extra thoughts/math.

          don’t tell the lady, but i have to admit that this topic comes up almost monthly for us. :P

          we live in the city center (or almost the city center) of a city of ~700,000. 15min walk to most key places. 20-25min walk to her work, which she likes. absolutely don’t need a car. but for the few long-distance trips we make (by train) she tends to think we need one. i always just bring up the simple fact that it would be a ton cheaper to just rent a car for such trips, if she didn’t want to take the train, than drop a ton of money on an oversized toy.

          but car culture is strong… even here in Europe. :D and i imagine the issue will come up again. :D