Drive Like Edison and Rockefeller: Buy a Detroit Electric!

In other automotive news, Detroit Electric, a brand resurrected from the early 20^th century, announced yesterday that it will partner with Malaysia's Proton Holdings to produce an electric car priced between $24,000 and $26,000. That'll get you a daily range of 110 miles; the 200-mile model will run $4K–$5K more. If you need more range than that, you're quite the outlier, as the average American drives 33 miles a day.

The company plans to put the new Detroit Electric in showrooms in Europe and China in quarter 1 of 2010, then the U.S. in quarter 3.

The Detroit Electric could be the future... but it's also a trip back in time:

In early part of the 20th century, Detroit Electric was one of a number of electric car manufacturers. These cars drove only about 20 miles per hour and had limited range but were considered suitable for city use and, by some, easier to drive than gasoline cars, which required a manual start.

In 1900, 28 percent of all cars produced were electric, but 20 years later the industry was all but dead, according to Michael Brian Schiffer, author of a history of electric cars in the U.S. The original Detroit Electric went out of business in the 1930s [Martin LaMonica, "Detroit Electric Resurrected as $25,000 Electric Car," CNet News, 2009.03.30].

The original Detroit Electric won customers like John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and Thomas Edison. Perhaps Chrysler should skip Fiat and merge with Detroit Electric; then we might see our modern captains of industry and invention buzzing merrily down the thoroughfare in Detroit Electrics next year!