Chrysler was very secretive about making their electric cars.  It started with a mandate in July of 2007 to make working prototypes by summer of 2009.  Chrysler took different people from all over the company and put them in their own skunkworks like group and were told to just get it done.  They have an unknown budget which probably means that it’s big.  No one knows much about it or how far along they are with their vehicles.

“We were completely shocked here,” when Chrysler announced the vehicles on Sept. 23, said Tracy Handler, an automotive product analyst at Global Insight Inc. in Troy, Michigan. “And probably skeptical a little bit as to how real these are.”

Until the announcement a few weeks ago, that Chrysler would have an electric vehicle for sale in 2010, Chrysler didn’t figure into the fuel efficient market and it certainly didn’t figure into the electric car market.

“It’s going to be tough for them to pull this off,” said Mike Omotoso, a Troy, Michigan-based analyst at market-research firm J.D. Power & Associates. “It’s unlikely that Chrysler will have the resources or technology to develop production vehicles by its 2010 goal,” he said.

So far the major competition in the electric car market is the Volt, made by GM.  Nissan has announced that it wants to have a 100 mile range electric vehicle soon, but haven’t announced a date.  Likewise, Toyota hasn’t set a date for their plugin Prius either.