The best electric car is either the one you like the best, or the one you have the pink slip to. If you just want a list of the best electric cars, go forward to the next page. This list includes battery electric cars only.
To date, the BMW ActiveE gets rave reviews. The Bimer EV is by lease only. Results of lease fleet testing will be incorporated into the BMW i3 EV in 2013.
For speed, range, driving, looks, and reliability, its pretty hard to beat the Tesla Roadster. The only problem is that they are no longer made, and the $110,000 price if they were.
There are any number of electric vehicle startups these days making some very cool rides. This is actually the same situation as electric car design and production 100 years ago: many different cars soaking a small, rapidly changing market. In our view, only a handful of electric cars are possible full-scale production vehicles.
For most of us, now or in the near future, the best new electric car would likely be a Nissan, Ford, BMW, Coda, Mitsubishi, Honda or Toyota. You have probably heard of Nissan and Toyota, the giant Japanese corporations. They both are investing heavily in electric cars, batteries, and charging facilities. Coda is a Southern California company combining their designs with Chinese parts to hopefully soon deliver a working sedan. As for BYD, you could see an e6 sedan on this year.
If you happen to be in France, check out the Renault electric car line. The French company is over the top in the number of electric car models.
If you can deal with downsizing your wheels, Reva is now producing a car with plenty of speed and range at an unbeatable price. Another serious contender in the smaller car category is the Think. The Think City is a well-engineered car with a long electric car heritage. Too bad Think recently went bankrupt.
BMW and Mitsubishi are now testing their electric production cars with mixed reviews so far. People seem to like the cars, but are having problems with decreased range in cold weather as well as too few charging stations. Since these are production pioneer vehicles, problems will get ironed out.
Interestingly, GM had the best electric car hands down ten years ago. Their EV1 went 140 miles or so on a charge, hit 70 mph easy, looked cool, and could be charged at home or at the charging stations then in place. Then for some reason (treason?) GM actually recalled and crushed every EV1 they could find. People protested, hid their cars, went to GM and offered to buy all of them out, no deal. It is interesting that oil stocks continued to rise during this time.
The other major US producer, Ford is getting ready to release the Ford Focus EV. This car looks like a winner.
The best electric car on paper might be the Chinese BYD e6. The e6 specs claim close to 250 miles on a quick charge and 100mph top speed. It is supposed to sell for around $22K or so. These are about the best electric car specs around. Too good to be true?
Actual e6 production has been delayed again, and again, and again. Will the car see production this decade?
As the saying goes, the best car is the one you have the pink slip to. So for many people the best electric car is probably a used one off of one of the used EV sites.
EVs are just now pulling ahead of where they were ten years ago. There are a bunch of new models coming out in the next few years. The great improvement will be the use of lithium ion batteries. Li Ion batteries hold more charge for the weight and can be recharged faster than the older Ni-Mh and Pb-Lead batteries of the last century.
