An electric car for the common man

One company is hoping to bring a $30,000, 80-mph battery-powered sedan to the market by 2009.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — If all goes according to plan, by 2009 you could be sticking it to Big Oil by driving an all electric, Chinese-made sedan for little more than the cost of a Camry.

Electric cars are nothing new. But until now they’ve either been very expensive to produce or, if not that, then small and relatively slow – little more than glorified golf carts.


Miles Rubin, with his $30,000 Miles XS 500, is hoping to change all that.

According to Rubin, Founder of Miles Automotive Group, the XS 500 has a top speed of 80 miles per hour and a range of 120 miles at 60 miles per hour. That’s about as fast as GM’s late-90s era electric car, the EV 1. And the XS 500 will be a lot cheaper to produce, the company says.

Both the low cost and the high range can be attributed to China, where low labor costs keep the price down and state-sponsored research into battery technology yielded what Rubin said was an advanced lithium ion power pack produced by Lishen Battery.

CNNMoney.com