By day, David Brown is a security consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton. But in his spare time, he’s one of a growing number of do-it-yourself electric vehicle creators. In the past couple of years, Brown retrofitted a 1974 Volkswagen Beetle into an electric car, and he talked about his “Voltswagon” project at the Defcon hacker conference on Saturday in Las Vegas.

Electric cars can save you a lot of money when it comes to skipping gas purchases, and they’ve been getting more popular since Tesla launched its first electric car in 2008. But the sticker price of new electric vehicles is a big barrier to adoption still, so hobbyist mechanics like Brown of Friendswood, Texas, are retrofitting their own cars for a relatively small price tag. Brown (pictured below) did it for about $6,000, not counting the cost of his car, tools, and about 100 hours of labor.

The whole point of designing an electric vehicle is to save energy. So it pays to keep that in mind when you’re adding a bunch of new things to an older car. When you are retrofitting a car, you need to install electric vehicle components such as a motor, controller, batteries, a charger, and accessories.

“If you are doing this to save the environment, you probably don’t want to convert a high-performance race car,” he said. “You want to maximize the utility, and figure out how far you need to go and how fast you need to go.”

You have to figure out your budget for the project and your own skills for doing the work. The good thing about building an electric vehicle is that a lot of hobbyists have done it before. Open ReVolt is a community dedicated to openly sharing learnings about electric cars including chargers and motor controllers.

“This is the part that I wished I had known about before I built my electric car,” Brown said.

A lot of the work is pulling out the old internal combustion engine and other parts that you no longer need in an existing car. You can pull the radiator out of the car since you don’t need it any more, making it lighter. If you convert a car from power brakes to manual, you can save on power consumption.

Brown said that the open-source EV Dashboard puts the makers of electric vehicles to shame with visual gauges that measure the state of your electric car in terms of speed and battery power. The dashboard electronics can be displayed on an iPad or Android tablet.

One of the tough problems is getting a vehicle charged in a timely manner. On a 110-volt electrical socket in a home, charging happens at a rate of 8 miles of charge per hour. On a 220-volt electric dryer plug, the rate is 44 miles per hour. A J1776-2009 charger can charge at 76 miles per hour. And a Japanese CHAdeMO charger can charge at 250 miles of charger per hour using 500 volts.

Brown’s car can get a top speed of 70 miles per hour and it goes from zero to 40 miles per hour in two to four seconds. It has 10 12-volt batteries and it gets 250 watt-hours per mile. It has a Curtiss 1221C controller and a D&D Motor Systems electric engine. The range is 16 to 26 miles. That short range is a drawback, for sure, but it is improving over time. And Brown noted that 80 percent of U.S. commutes are under 40 mile, and there is no energy wasted while sitting in traffic. The typical cost is about 2 cents per mile.

For electric vehicle resources, he used vendors including Wilderness EV, KTA Services, Cloud Electric, Sam’s Club, Calib Power, eBay, Lightobject, and Chennic. Other helpful web sites included DIY Electric Car, EVTV Motor Verks, EVDL, V is for Voltage Forums and Ecomodder. You can check out the possibilities for projects with DIY electric cars on EV Album.

Brown said some technologies that just aren’t ready for prime time, especially for hobbyists, are: solar, hydrogen, supercapacitors,
hub motors, and DIY hybrids. Modders have to be aware that the laws for each state are different. It’s sometimes tough to get an electric vehicle certified in a smog test because the regulators don’t believe that the emissions for any car are “zero.”

Brown said that the project cost him a fair amount of money. He paid $1,200 for a motor, $1,000 for a controller $800 for batteries, $600 for a charger, $500 for an adapter/charger, and $800 for miscellaneous.On top of that, you need a lot of tools. (Make sure you put electrical tape around the tools, as you don’t want to accidentally hit the battery and short it out).

If you’re doing it yourself, you want to buy your batteries last. That’s because the technology is changing fast and it may change several times  in a six-month to two-year project.

But he added the cost for no longer being the “bitch” of OPEC and Exxon: priceless.

GM will also temporarily lay off 1,300 employees who work on the Volt’s production line between March 19 and April 23, Detroit Free Press reported. The company cites the need to “align our production with demand” for the production halt, meaning it’s been producing far more cars than it can sell.

The Volt was released in 2011 and sold a mere 7,671, missing its 2011 10,000 sales goal. Sales have been up this year: In January and February it sold more than 1,600 models. But GM’s 2012 plan is to produce 45,000 Volts for the United States, and with only 1,600 cars sold in the first two months, there is a low likelihood it will be able to push that many units off the lot. It seems GM is taking this time to scale back production and rethink its strategy.

GM announced in early January that it will be improving the Volt’s battery cooling system in response to two Volts that caught fire after their batteries were punctured. Chevy stands by the safety of the Volt, but the bad press from the fires have clearly hurt the Volt’s image and haven’t helped the car’s sales.

Fisker has already received $529 million in loans from the U.S. Department of Energy to make its plug-in extended-range vehicles. The majority of the loans are going toward the development of the Nina, a mid-priced family car, to be built in a former GM plant in Delaware. The manufacturing delay means that the creation of thousands of promised new jobs will also be postponed. Fisker now plans to start production in 2013.

“Yes there have been delays, but we have created a totally new car, based on a new technology and started a company and raised finance for it in less than 4 years since the company was formed — and all in an economic downturn,” Roger Ormisher, Fisker’s director of global communication told VentureBeat.

A $169 million chunk of the government’s loan has gone to development of Fisker’s Karma, a luxury sedan made in Finland that costs $96,000 (pictured above). However, even though the factory is in Finland, Fisker and the Department of Energy say the loan money is not being spent abroad, but rather in the U.S. on design, engineering and integration.

The Karma has just been cleared for sale in the U.S., two years late and without meeting its promised efficiency standards. Last week the EPA gave it a rating of 52 miles per gallon in electric mode, and a low 20 miles per gallon in gas mode. Only 40 of the cars have been shipped to the U.S. from Finland, but the company still plans on ramping up production to 15,000 cars a year.

The Obama administration’s $38.6 billion loan guarantee program for green-energy companies is part of a “green jobs” initiative that was supposed to create or keep 65,000 jobs. So far it has given out half its loans and created 3,545 full-time jobs, according to the Washington Post. The failure of solar-panel manufacturer Solyndra in September thrust the program into the spotlight, with many questioning the decision to tie investing in unproven and emerging green technology companies to job creation. It’s likely that all of the program’s loan recipients will be closely scrutinized.

The Department of Energy has adjusted the terms of its loan agreement with Fisker to accommodate the delays. Fisker Automotive’s founder, Henrik Fisker, told the Washington Post of comparisons to Solyndra, “This is completely different. You can’t compare at all.”

Fisker Automotive has raised over $600 million in private equity financing, the majority of which has been used to create jobs, including 650 in Calif. and 100 in Delaware, according to Fisker.

[via Washington Post]

We caught up with 29 electric car manufacturers and developers to find out what they’re doing today. Some are still going strong, some have begun actively producing their cars, and some … well, not every startup can survive.

Most major car companies have begun working on a hybrid electric car or a pure battery-powered electric car. The Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Volt, two of the cheapest electric cars on the market, now cost less than $50,000. And there are plenty of other battery-powered and hybrid electric cars in the pipeline that will bring those costs even lower.

This list is sorted according to car availability and release dates based on publicly available information.

Battery-Powered Electric Cars

Battery-powered electric cars are emerging as reliable forms of transportation. The Nissan Leaf is currently the leader in the early adopter market for battery-powered electric cars. It costs around $35,000 and has a range of around 100 miles. Tesla Motors’ cars have much higher ranges — the Model S is expected to be able to travel around 300 miles between charges — but are more expensive. Battery-powered electric vehicles face longer turnaround times than hybrids because they take longer to charge than filling up a gas tank.

American Electric Vehicle: Kurrent
American Electric Vehicle (AEV) advises its potential drivers to “slow down,” which seems like wise advice, given the golf cart-inspired design of its Kurrent car. Still, it’s ridiculously cheap.
Price: $10,000
Range/Top Speed: 40 miles/25mph
Release date: Available now

Commuter Cars: Tango T600
The Tango is an oddball. It’s less than half the width of a normal car, and two can fit in a single lane. It also accelerates like a bat out of hell, going from 0 to 60 miles per hour in 4 seconds. But this guy will cost you an arm and a leg. Future versions are planned to be much cheaper, and have longer ranges.
Price: $108,000
Range/Top Speed: 80 miles/150mph
Release date: Available now

Dynasty Electric Car Corp.: IT Sedan
This Canadian company sells five different models, although they all look relatively similar. The IT Sedan is another slow-moving electric car, which brings the cost of the car down.
Price: $19,000
Range/Top Speed: 30 miles/24mph
Release Date: Available now

Pure Mobility: Kewet Buddy
Somewhat reminiscent of the Think (now in the deadpool section below), the Buddy is currently only available in its first launch country, Norway.
Price: $28,000
Range/Top Speed: 37 miles/56mph
Release Date: Available now

Fly Bo: FB-3000
The FB-3000, which bears a strong resemblance to the Smart Car, is produced in China.
Price: $10,000
Range/Top Speed: 60 miles/35mph
Release Date: Available now

Global Electric Motorcars (GEM): e2
GEM is a division of Chrysler. Its vehicles resemble golf carts. Polaris Industries acquired the company earlier this year. It currently has six vehicles that are primarily geared to intra-city use.
Price: $7,500
Range/Top Speed: 35 miles/25mph
Release Date: Available now

Myers Motors: NmG (No more Gas)
The NmG is a three-wheeled car with room for only one passenger. It doesn’t go far, but it’s quite speedy. Myers Motors is based in Tallmadge, Ohio.
Price: $22,500
Range/Top Speed: 30 miles/75mph
Release Date: Available now

Reva: G-Wiz
The Indian-produced Reva still isn’t available in the United States. It’s considered unsafe at high speeds, so it may never make it here.
Price: $16,000
Range/Top Speed: 50 miles/50mph
Release Date: Available now

Smith Electric Vehicles: Edison
The Edison, a large van designed for local deliveries, is Smith’s smallest model, meaning drivers don’t need a special license to operate it. The company, based in the United Kingdom also makes several larger delivery trucks. Smith Electric Vehicles raised $58 million in March.
Price: Unconfirmed
Range/Top Speed: 100 miles/50mph
Release Date: Available now

Twike: The Twike
The company sold out its 2007 Twike line of three-wheeled vehicles. It’s based in Switzerland, but sells in several other countries, including the United States. The company has sold between 20 and 25 Twikes in the U.S. The Twike is registered as a motor cycle by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Price: $24,400
Range/Top Speed: 80 miles/53mph
Release Date: Available now

Venturi: Fétish
Another high-end electric sports car (and we stress high-end — look at that price!), the Fétish is manufactured in Monaco. Venturi plans to continue manufacturing the Fétish until 2015.
Price: $400,000
Range/Top Speed: 155 miles/100mph
Release Date: Available now

Universal Electric Vehicles: Spyder
UEV’s Spyder has a sporty design, but the company itself doesn’t seem as slick and polished as some of the competitors. The company’s website is just an explanation of the car and the doesn’t indicate how to order it (which you can apparently do by calling the company). The company is based in Thousand Oaks, Calif.
Price: $70,000
Range/Top Speed: 300 miles/80mph
Release Date: Available Now

Miles Electric Vehicles: ZX40S
Miles Electric Vehicles specializes in low-speed cars and trucks that don’t require a lot of juice to run. The vehicles are also cheap because they don’t have to include the same safety standards that higher-speed cars require, such as airbags.
Price: $19,500
Range/Top Speed: 40 to 50 miles/25mph
Release Date: Available Now

Zap! Electric Cars: Alias
Zap! Electric Cars stopped producing the Xebra, its earlier electric car model, in 2008. Its next car is the sporty Alias. The company has also begun work on the A380, an SUV that Zap! says can travel around 350 miles on a single charge. The website indicates that the Alias was supposed to go into production in June, but there are no new details. The company is based in Santa Rosa, Calif.
Price: $38,500
Range/Top Speed: 100 miles/85mph
Release Date: “Accepting reservations”

Lightning Car Company: Lightning GT
This is the United Kingdom’s answer to the Tesla Roadster. The Lightning GT is still slated for a 2012 delivery, and the company is taking pre-orders for the car.
Price: $293,000
Range/Top Speed: 150 miles/124mph
Release Date: 2012

Arcimoto: Arcimoto SRK
The Arcimoto SRK is a two-seater battery-powered electric vehicle. It’s a bit like a three-wheeled electric powered jeep. Like other independent electric car makers, the company has a pretty small retail footprint.
Price: $17,500
Range/Top Speed: 160 miles/65mph
Release Date: Late 2012

Tesla Motors: Model S, Model X
The first shipments of the Silicon Valley-based company’s second electric car, the Model S, are expected early next year. Tesla Motors is working on a battery-powered electric SUV called the Model X, which it will unveil later this year.
Price: $57,400 (Model S)
Range/Top Speed: 300 miles/120mph
Release Date: early 2012 (Model S)

Phoenix Motorcars: Phoenix SUT
Phoenix Motorcars was originally planning to produce a sport-utility vehicle, but it has halted development as of last year. The company has since begun working on a sport-utility truck that’s due next year. The company is based in Ontario, Calif.
Price: $45,000
Range/Top Speed: 70 miles/80mph
Release Date: 2012

Motor Development International: MiniFlowAir
These tiny, unusual little vehicles are powered entirely by compressed air. Motor Development International unveiled a concept car, the AirPod, in 2009 and has since started working on several other air-powered cars. The company is based in Carros, France.
Price: $12,600
Range/Top Speed: 110 miles/68mph
Release Date: 2013

Aptera: 2e
In August, Aptera was forced to return 2,500 $500 security deposits due to a snafu with its credit card processor. The company filed for a $184 million loan from the U.S. Department of Energy but was denied. It’s still waiting to hear back about approval for a $75 million loan.
Price: $30,000
Range/Top Speed: 100 miles/TBA
Release Date: TBA

Persu (formerly Venture Vehicles): Persu V3
The Persu is a sleek three-wheeled electric scooter-like car that looks like it comes out of a sci-fi film. The car has plenty of buzz and showed up on Top Gear, a show that tests out supercars like the Tesla Roadster. Persu is based in Los Angeles, Calif.
Price: $25,000
Range/Top Speed: 350 miles/100mph
Release Date: 2014

Proterra: Proterra EcoRide
A Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers-backed electric car manufacturer, Proterra specializes in making buses powered by electric motors. Those buses are meant for public transportation in large cities like Chicago and San Francisco.
Price: TBA
Range/Top Speed: 400 miles/65mph
Release Date: TBA

Mission Motors: Mission One PLE
The Mission One PLE is a concept electric motorbike produced by Mission Motors. The company licenses its electric motors and powertrains out to other car manufacturers. Mission Motors is based in San Francisco, Calif.
Price: TBA
Range/Top Speed: 150 miles/150mph
Release Date: TBA

Wrightspeed: X-1
Wrightspeed recently cut the ribbon on a manufacturing plant for its supercharged electric car, the X-1. That car was last spotted on a track in April racing past a Tesla Roadster, for those of you keeping score. The X-1 is a formula one-esque supercar developed by Ian Wright, originally a founding team member of Tesla Motors.
Price: TBA
Range/Top Speed: 100 miles/104mph
Release Date: TBA

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Musk told entrepreneurs at the conference to start smaller companies with lower capital costs instead of jumping straight into a large market (watch the video below). The ante for a car company, for example, is around $1 billion, said Ray Lane, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Musk was able to enter that market thanks to the success of his first company PayPal, which was bought by eBay in 2002.

Thanks to the success the three co-founders of PayPal achieved, they were dubbed members of the “PayPal Mafia.” Thiel went on to become an investor while Max Levchin started Slide, which was later bought by Google. Musk started Tesla Motors, an electric car company, and SpaceX, a space transportation company.

Tesla Motors has since gone public and SpaceX is currently slated to replace the now-ended U.S. space shuttle program. It will start with simple cargo missions, but SpaceX flights will begin carrying astronauts in around three years, Musk said.

Around 35 percent of electric car owners were concerned about reaching a destination before running out of juice three months after buying a car, compared to 100 percent of car owners when they first bought the electric car, according to the report. More car owners drove the cars until the battery fell below 50 percent charge. But the report also showed that electric car owners still desire longer ranges.

Most battery-powered electric cars are limited in their range, which can make car purchasers skittish and less likely to buy a pure battery-powered electric car. It’s one reason hybrid cars — particularly a new extended-range model that can travel 25-50 miles on battery power before switching to gasoline — are more popular than battery-powered electric hybrids.

Clean technology research firm Pike Research expects 754,000 extended-range hybrid electric vehicles to hit the road by 2017, compared to around 504,000 battery-electric vehicles. It’s around a three-to-two ratio, which should continue for the foreseeable future in the United States, Pike Research analyst John Gartner told VentureBeat.

Extended-range hybrids can travel much further without having to recharge for upwards of several hours. Most battery-powered electric cars have long recharge times that require drivers to leave them overnight. But Tesla Motors is working on a fast-charging procedure that it says will charge the Model S to around 80 percent battery life in 45 minutes.

The Nissan Leaf, one of the cheapest electric cars on the market, can only travel around 100 miles before needing to recharge. Tesla Motors cars have some of the longest ranges in the industry, with the Roadster traveling more than 200 miles before a recharge and its newest car, the Model S, traveling up to 300 miles between charges. But The Model S is a little pricey at $57,000 before government incentives for purchasing an electric car.

A clear trend is emerging among electric car manufacturers: Plug-in hybrids are a better near-term bet than purely battery-powered cars.

Ford today unveiled the latest in its series of electric cars, a plug-in hybrid electric car called the Evos. The car has a battery-powered engine that can travel between 30 and 40 miles before switching over to an engine powered by gasoline. (Drivers can also choose whether they want to power the car solely off a gas engine, or use both the battery and gasoline to power the car.) The car also collects an enormous amount of data about your driving habits, uploads that data to remote servers, crunches it together with other drivers’ data, and supplies you with better strategies to get the most of out of your electric vehicle.

It’s one of a long line of cars that have been unveiled recently that rely on an extended-range model for electrification. The cars can travel a certain distance on an electric motor before switching over to gasoline. It’s usually a smaller range — between 25 and 50 miles — but the cars are designed to give drivers who want to drive an entirely electric car the option to do so without having to worry about running dry at any point.

Extended-range hybrid electric cars are a new breed of electric cars that differ from traditional hybrid electric cars, which run a powertrain with both electric power and gasoline. The extended-range model powers an engine entirely from battery power, and then when the battery runs dry it uses a gas-powered motor to recharge the battery and extend the range of the car. If drivers limit their driving habits, the car essentially behaves like a battery-powered electric car.

“We really feel like the plug-in hybrid is going to be the most popular for the widest variety of customers,” Ford technology communications manager Alan Hall told VentureBeat. “Hybrids today have been very successful with customers because you don’t have the range anxiety that might come from owning a battery-powered electric car.”

Ford isn’t the only company that expects the plug-in hybrid to win out. Clean technology research firm Pike Research expects 754,000 extended-range hybrid electric vehicles to hit the road by 2017, compared to around 504,000 battery-electric vehicles. It’s around a three-to-two ratio, which should continue for the foreseeable future in the United States, Pike Research analyst John Gartner told VentureBeat.

That’s compared to traditional hybrids, which have become popular in recent years because they are much more fuel efficient than typical cars powered by internal combustion engines. For example, Toyota has sold 3.3 million Toyota Prius hybrids since the car came out in 1997. Pike Research is forecasting 2.75 million traditional hybrid models sold between 2011 and 2017. But traditional hybrids have a first-mover advantage over extended-range vehicles, which have only recently started to gain traction.

Here’s a list of just a few upcoming cars that use the extended-range model:

• The BMW i3 (pictured above) and i8 models both have extended-range versions.
• General Motors’ Cadillac ELR, an extended-range luxury sedan, travels around 35 miles before switching to a gasoline.
• Fisker Automotive delivered the first commercially-produced model of its luxury extended-range electric car hybrid, the Fisker Karma (pictured below), last month.
• Ford today unveiled the Evos, above.

“North America is the only region where we see plug-ins outselling battery electrics because of the mix of manufacturers and driving habits,” Gartner said. “Partly because drivers here in America tend to go further than in other parts of the world, partly because of the flexibility of having a secondary power source. We think plug-in hybrids will outsell battery electrics for the foreseeable future.”

North America is one of the largest car markets in the world, particularly in the United States, where road trips between major cities like San Francisco and Las Vegas are the norm. In my case, it’d be between Austin, Texas, and my hometown Houston, a trip that’s around 165 miles or more than 300 miles round trip. That’s a trip that far exceeds the mileage you could get out of a purely electric car like the Nissan Leaf, which is limited to 100 miles.

Purely electric cars pose two problems for drivers: limited range and a limited infrastructure for recharging them. The first problem should eventually find a solution as battery technology matures to the point that the choice between an extended-range hybrid and a battery-powered electric car becomes a choice of personal preference, Gartner said. But the latter problem still doesn’t have a definitive solution, nor a plan for a solution, in place yet.

“Long term, battery-powered electric cars have the potential to come on in force, but in order to accelerate that, you need to see a significant advancement of the infrastructure,” Volt spokesperson Rob Peterson told VentureBeat. “You’re still required to recharge that car, and even if there’s a network of fast chargers you’d have to have the flexibility to drive in certain limits — right now, people aren’t willing to make that decision.”

Cue Tesla Motors, one of the upstarts in the battery-powered electric car market. Tesla’s cars have some of the longest ranges in the industry, with the Tesla Roadster checking in at around 200 miles before it runs out of juice and the company’s upcoming car, the Model S, running around 300 miles before the battery runs dry, the company claims. The company is also working on a fast-charging procedure that it says will charge the Model S to around 80 percent battery life in 45 minutes.

“The vast majority of our customers just plug in at night when electricity is cheapest and wake up with full range available,” Tesla Motors spokesperson Camille Ricketts told VentureBeat. “We can get an 80 percent charge in just 45 minutes, makes it very realistic to be on a road trip. You just plug in while you’re eating lunch or stopping for dinner.”

The Model S (pictured below) currently runs a pricey $57,000 before government incentives for purchasing an electric car, and will be available later in 2012. Around 75 percent of the reservations for the Model S came from U.S. car buyers, while the rest came from European buyers, according to Tesla Motors chief executive Elon Musk. But Tesla Motors intends to drive the cost of pure battery-powered electric cars down to a point where any consumer can afford the car and it becomes a preference choice between battery-powered electric cars and extended-range electric cars, Ricketts said.

Despite a strong showing of support for the extended-range electric hybrid, the Nissan Leaf has proved popular in the small but fiercely competitive market of early electric car adopters. Nissan sold 931 all-electric battery-powered Leafs in July, bringing the total number of electric cars the company has sold to 4,806. General Motors only sold 125 Volts, but it had to shut down its Detroit-based plant to retool it, bringing its total vehicles shipped to 2,870. General Motors expects to sell around 16,000 Volts by the end of the year now that the plant has re-opened.

In Europe, where there are more well-defined driving habits, battery-powered electric cars are set to bloom. That’s because North American driving habits cater more toward much longer ranges, like those trips between Austin and Houston, while most drivers in Europe have smaller commutes and do not take long driving trips like North American drivers are accustomed to.

“North America is the only region where we see plug-ins outselling battery electrics because of the mix of manufacturers and driving habits,” Gartner said.

Those companies mentioned above still plan on manufacturing battery-powered electric cars. General Motors, for example, has a several deals in place with battery suppliers for a battery-powered electric car the company plans to unveil later this year, Peterson said. But for the time being, those cars are geared toward a niche market that have well-defined driving habits and shorter commutes, Peterson said.

“A pure battery-powered electric car, like a Nissan Leaf, has to be positioned for the right customer and really in the right environment,” he said. “It has to be a person with a very well-defined commute or driving pattern or operates it in an area with a mature charging infrastructure — and right now that infrastructure is not mature yet.”

Ford and Toyota will jointly develop a rear-wheel drive electric powertrain and then introduce the powertrain in separate vehicle lines for each company. The light trucks and SUVs should arrive sometime later this decade, the companies said in an official announcement.

“The companies are likely looking to reduce cost of the drivetrain to grow the hybrid market, and they don’t see each other as much as direct competitors in the SUV/truck market as with light duty cars,” Pike Research analyst John Gartner told VentureBeat. “There is enough differentiation in the rest of the vehicle design that a common drivetrain with a competitor should not be problematic.”

Toyota is already collaborating with Tesla Motors, makers of the battery-powered Tesla Roadster electric car, on an all-electric RAV4. General Motors also manufactures hybrid-electric light trucks, including the Chevy Silverado. But most car manufacturers are focusing on smaller sedans and coupes. Some, like those from BMW and General Motors,  sport extended-range electric vehicle powertrains, but most are hybrid engines that use gas and electric motors in parallel.

“Since it’s aimed specifically at rear-wheel drive, it is probably something for the F-150/Expedition and Tundra/Sequoia size vehicles,” Pike Research analyst Dave Hurst told VentureBeat. “That would be filling a gap vs. General Motors and its Silverado/Tahoe hybrids.”

The companies did not indicate whether the powertrains they are developing would be extended-range electric vehicle powertrains, which are becoming increasingly popular with manufacturers, or traditional hybrid-electric powertrains like the ones that appear in the Toyota Prius. Extended-range electric vehicles use an electric motor to power the car for a certain distance — usually between 25 and 50 miles — before switching on a gas-powered motor to recharge the battery.

Tesla Motors is also working on a pure battery-powered electric sport utility vehicle called the Model X. The company raised an extra $210 million in June to fund development of the Model X and the Model S, its upcoming battery-powered sedan. The company plans to unveil that electric car in December, with the Model S coming out sometime later this year.

Toyota was an early entrant in the hybrid-electric car market. The company released its first hybrid car, the Prius, in 1997 and has sold 3.3 million of the car since its release. Tesla Motors also provides Toyota with powertrain systems that include a battery, charging system, inverter, motor, gearbox and associated software that are deployed in Tesla’s current fleet.

It would be the company’s third funding round in six months. Fisker Automotive raised $190 million just five months ago to help fund the production of its electric cars. The company finished off a recent $100 million round in May, led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

“If you look at what they are trying to achieve relative to Tesla in terms of producing 15,000 vehicles annually, then Fisker’s fundraising and targets should be considered reasonable,” Pike Research analyst John Gartner told VentureBeat. “Of course Tesla has a much longer history of selling vehicles, albeit in more limited quantities.”

Fisker Automotive was previously valued at around $1.5 billion when it raised a small extension to its last funding round in June, according to venture capital data provider VC Experts. The new valuation would put it on par with Tesla Motors, a plug-in battery-powered electric vehicle manufacturer that has a market cap of around $2.5 billion. But the two companies can’t necessarily be compared side-by-side because they employ two different kinds of electric-vehicle battery strategies.

“Fisker’s strategy appears to be outsourcing many of the key components, such as the motor, electric drive and battery pack, so the development cost and time should be less,” Gartner said.

Tesla Motors’ cars employ a pure battery that powers the electric car that owners have to recharge when empty. Fisker Automotive uses an extended-range model, where when the battery runs out, the car uses gasoline to power a generator that recharges the battery to extend the distance the car can drive. The owner can plug the car in at any time to recharge the battery and save gasoline. Tesla Motors also sells its powertrain technology to other car companies, like Toyota.

Fisker Automotive has produced 54 extended-range electric vehicles and is revving up it production of the high-end luxury electric car, the Fisker Karma. The company delivered its first Fisker Karma manufactured for consumers to Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner Ray Lane last month. That means the company might soon be another player in the electric car market alongside Nissan and Tesla Motors.

The company is also working on a cheaper electric car — a plug-in hybrid sedan called the N-1. That car should retail for somewhere between $35,000 and $50,000. The Karma has a manufacturer suggested retail price of around $96,000 for a basic model and $109,000 for the top-end model.

The company is backed by Kleiner Perkins, as well as New Enterprise Associates and A123 Systems Inc. VentureBeat has contacted Fisker Automotive for additional details.

The new high-end vehicle features an electric motor that will travel for about 35 miles when the car’s battery is fully charged. When the battery runs out, the car uses gasoline to power a generator that recharges the battery, extending the distance the car can drive. The owner can plug the car in at any time to recharge the battery and save gasoline. The Cadillac ELR will feature a Voltec powertrain — the same powertrain used in its other extended-range electric vehicle, the Volt.

Purely electric cars can take several hours to charge and require drivers to plan out their days or change their driving habits. Owners of range-extending cars do not technically ever have to plug the car in, but if they choose to do so they can save on fuel costs and don’t have to drastically alter their daily driving routines. General Motors’ Chevy Volt uses the same technology, as does the Fisker Karma.

“The extended range is a lot more likely to be a mainstream vehicle in the U.S. than a battery electric,” Pike Research analyst Dave Hurst told VentureBeat. “A lot of Americans, regardless of their actual range, they think they need the range of 300 or 400 miles — whether they need it or not is beside the point.”

Car manufacturer BMW unveiled its own extended-range electric vehicles last month. GM is likely to face stiffer competition from the BMW i8, a sporty electric hybrid that can go from 0 to 62 miles per hour in less than 5 seconds, Hurst said. The Fisker Karma, another luxury sedan, likely won’t pose as much of a threat because it’s made by a smaller and much newer company, he said. BMW also unveiled the more practical i3 mini last month, which it will sell as both a battery-powered and range-extended model.

General Motors has had some trouble shipping its first extended-range electric vehicle, the Volt, due to a number of production delays. The company only sold 125 Volts after shutting down its Detroit-based plant to retool it, bringing its total vehicles shipped to 2,870. General Motors expects to sell around 16,000 Volts by the end of the year now that the plant has re-opened.

“GM definitely sees that there’s a market for the luxury side of things,” Hurst said. “With their strength with the Cadillac brand, I’m sure they’re feeling like they’re stepping into a market that’s pretty wide open.”

Mission Motors makes powertrains, which are the drive units for electric cars that include a battery, charging system, inverter, motor, gearbox and associated software. The company then sells those powertrains to original equipment manufacturers like car and bike manufacturers. It has released some prototypes bikes like the Mission R, which set track speed records for electric bikes.

But the company does not manufacture bikes or cars, nor does it have any plans to, Mission Motors chief executive Jit Bhattacharya told VentureBeat. That’s because creating a pure electric car company — like Fisker Automotive and Tesla Motors have done — is a very capital-intensive process. The ante for creating an electric car company is usually around $1 billion, according to Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner Ray Lane — who invested in Fisker Automotive.

“In trying to build a new electric vehicle company, you face some very capital-intensive challenges in vehicle manufacturing and distribution,” Bhattacharya said. “As a powertrain company, we leave the most capital-intensive parts of the business to vehicle manufacturers.”

The funding round was led by Warburg Pincus. The company plans to use most of the investment to build out its team and make more commercially-viable products, Bhattacharya said. Since the prototypes have been successful, the company is scouting out hybrid vehicle and electric bike manufacturers and already has some deals in place, he said.

“Our powertrain tech has already been seen in a hybrid car that’s out there,” he said (though he wouldn’t specify which hybrid). “We can fit this technology that we’re developing into a range of applications, from motorcycles to cars.”

Warburg Pincus can invest up to $50 million at any time as part of the deal, according to the company.

Khosla Ventures partners Jim Kim and Alex Kinnier have followed former partner Gideon Yu in leaving the cleantech investing firm. The turnover has clouded the future of clean technology investment firms, which are exposed to higher risk and lower returns now that the initial excitement has died down.

“Not unlike most sectors, there’s a period of exuberance that tends to kick off a particular sector and then it settles down into the hard work necessary to build real value,” Mohr Davidow Ventures general partner Josh Green told VentureBeat. “We’re into that real value building element of clean technology, so a little bit of the excitement has slowed down.”

Cleantech investing is particularly sensitive to investor sentiment because the sector typically requires massive upfront capital costs and, as a result, is a little more risky. A recent broad market sell-off that scattered public investors hasn’t helped much either, leaving less liquidity on the table for venture capital firms looking to cash in on high-priced initial public offerings.

That’s made investors turn to safer investments like treasuries and bonds as well as less capital-intensive startups, like business social network LinkedIn and those in the Web 2.0 space. The sell-off has also raised questions about whether the window for companies looking to file for an initial public offering has closed.

The Khosla Way

When Vinod Khosla (pictured above) left Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 2004 to invest in clean technology startups, he swung for the fences. Khosla was known for taking a “portfolio” approach to cleantech investing by dropping money in just about every potential part of the budding sector, from biofuels to smart grid companies. The company has invested in some information tech companies like group texting service GroupMe, but it has traditionally been known as a clean technology investment firm.

But the excitement during clean technology’s honeymoon period has started to die down. That’s left venture capital firms that are heavily exposed to clean technology investments at a disadvantage compared to the likes of Andreessen-Horowitz and Accel Partners, which are investing in the newest and sexiest startups in Silicon Valley.

VantagePoint Venture Partners was able to ride the existing excitement by investing in companies like electric car maker Tesla Motors, which successfully went public, and solar power provider Brightsource Energy, which has filed for an initial public offering. It also invested in biofuels maker Solazyme, which also went public. But right now, it seems Fisker Automotive and Bloom Energy are the “aha” moments in clean technology right now, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner Ray Lane told VentureBeat.

Yu, an investor in transaction provider Square, left Khosla Ventures in earlier this year to become the chief strategy officer of the San Francisco 49ers — an established sports franchise with five Superbowl victories. Kinnier planned to start his own company after joining Khosla Ventures from search giant Google. Kim has not said what his plans are after leaving the firm.

Slower investing, lighter IPOs

Investments in clean technology companies slowed in the second quarter this year. The amount of money invested clean technology projects fell 10 percent to $1.83 billion when compared to $2.03 billion in the second quarter of 2010.

Algae-based biofuel maker Solazyme raised $227 million from its initial public offering in June, while biofuel maker KiOR raised $150 million in its initial public offering in May. (Both companies’ share prices were crushed in the market sell-off on Monday, with each company losing more than 16 percent of its share’s value by the end of trading.) Smart grid developer Silver Spring Networks only plans to raise $150 million in its upcoming initial public offering.

That’s compared to business social network LinkedIn, which raised more than $350 million without flinching. That company also picked up a market cap of nearly $10 billion before the sell-off wiped out more than $3 billion in value. Two other Web 2.0 companies, Groupon and Zynga, already filed to go public. Groupon wants to raise up to $750 million, while Zynga wants to raise up to $1 billion.

Meanwhile, mergers and acquisitions activity in the tech space — particularly companies that use cloud computing technology, which uses powerful remote servers to execute computationally-intensive tasks — is exploding. The amount of money spent on mergers and acquisitions in those spaces nearly doubled to $52 billion in the second quarter this year, up from $30 billion in the same quarter a year earlier.

The lack of excitement could lead to a cash crunch for clean technology companies that need to raise large later rounds of funding to continue working through their larger capital costs. It’s a vicious cycle that threatens to dismantle the cleantech investing ethos if it were left to run rampant.

“There would be very greatly reduced interest on the part of venture capital firms to fund anything,” Claremont Creek Ventures partner Nat Goldhaber told VentureBeat. “That means that follow-on capital could be more difficult than it has been historically to pick up.”

There’s also concern over whether government grants that have helped clean technology companies with their large capital costs will persist, which could also take the wind out of the sails for cleantech companies.

“Many of those investments were made possible by TARP and other extra ordinary grants,” Goldhaber said. “Brightsource, Tesla and many others were recipients of very large investments by the Fed, who knows what’s going to happen with that.”

Focus Electric car buyers will have the option to buy a rooftop solar charging system that costs around $10,000 after federal tax credits. The panels generate around 2.5 kilowatts of power, which is enough to charge an electric car to the point that it can drive around 1,000 miles with typical driving habits. The panels will generated 3,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity each year on average.

“If you’re selling electric vehicles, your potential buyers want people to know they’re driving electric cars,” Kachan & Co. managing partner Dallas Kachan told VentureBeat. “So attaching big, visible solar chargers make merchandising sense, even if they don’t charge vehicles a meaningful amount.”

The electricity generated by the panels powers the cars directly, taking some load off the power grid. When owners aren’t charging cars, the panels divert the electricity to the home. It’s part of what’s called “distributed solar,” which is designed to help reduce some of the strain on power grids during peak usage hours when homes are drawing more electricity for air conditioning or, in the future, electric car charging.

Distributed solar is viewed as one way of relieving strain on a power grid that faces the risk of excessive demand if electric cars become popular in the mainstream. It’s spawned a number of companies that lease and sell solar panels on homes and generated a lot of interest from investors. Search giant Google recently created a $280 million fund for residential solar power projects run by residential solar panel provider SolarCity.

A study done by the University of California at Berkeley found that home values increase when solar panels are installed. The study found that homes with solar panels sold for an extra $5.50 per watt of solar power installed, for an average of $17,000 more per house.

The Model X uses the same powertrain and technology as the other electric cars Tesla produces. That helped the company cut the development time for the Model X in half. It also required about a third as much in upfront capital expenditures to begin producing the Model X, Musk said.

“The plan is to have an unveiling of the Model X prototype in the mid-December time frame,” Musk said. “So far it’s looking good, I don’t think anything will cause an issue.”

The company raised an extra $210 million in June to fund development of the Model X and the Model S, its upcoming sedan. Musk said he didn’t expect to raise additional funding for now. ”At this point we don’t anticipate any need for a secondary between now and the start of the Model X production,” Musk said. “If we see a significant opportunity and it’s worth the dilution to pursue that opportunity, then we’ll go to market. But we don’t foresee doing that.”

Tesla Motors’ Model X is the third electric car the company will produce. The company first released a pricey sports car called the Tesla Roadster, which costs around $109,000. That car is a two-seater that can go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in around 3.7 seconds and can travel more than 200 miles on a single charge. It tops out at around 125 miles per hour.

The company expects to build around 15,000 Model X cars each year once production ramps up in 2013. Musk said he hopes the company will reach the 500,000 yearly vehicle production target the company’s NUMMI production facility can sustain, but doesn’t want to “bite off more than he can chew.”

The company expects to deliver drivable beta models for the Model S (pictured above) in October. The Model S is geared toward casual car buyers and those buying electric cars for the first time.  The Model S costs a slightly more reasonable $57,000 before government incentives for purchasing an electric car, and can travel around 300 miles before needing to recharge.

“We’ve sold out of all custom orders for the roadsters, there are some spec cars available but otherwise we’re sold out,” Tesla Motors chief executive Elon Musk said on the company’s quarterly earnings call today. “You can’t actually buy a custom-ordered roadster in the U.S. any more.”

The company plans to ship the Model S in the United States initially. It will continue to sell Roadsters in other countries until it begins selling the Model S internationally, Musk said. There are still spec cars for sale that buyers can’t customize.

The car has proved popular because it’s a sporty model with one of the largest ranges for an electric car. It appeals to sports-car enthusiasts because it can go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in 3.7 seconds and has a top speed of 125 miles per hour. But it does carry a hefty price tag of $109,000. The company said it had sold 1,840 Roadsters by the end of its most recent operating quarter.

The electric-car maker is still working on its second car, the Model S sedan, which will be geared toward casual car buyers and those buying electric cars for the first time.  The Model S costs a slightly more reasonable $57,000 before government incentives for purchasing an electric car. The production model will come out in the United States around summer next year and in Europe toward the end of 2012.

Nissan sold 931 all-electric battery-powered Leafs in July, bringing the total number of electric cars the company has sold to 4,806. General Motors only sold 125 Volts after shutting down its Detroit-based plant to retool it, bringing its total vehicles shipped to 2,870. General Motors expects to sell around 16,000 Volts by the end of the year now that the plant has re-opened.

The Volt is an extended-range electric car that recharges its battery with a gas-powered engine. The car can run around 35 miles off battery power before the internal combustion engine kicks in, giving the car a total range north of 300 miles on a full charge and full tank of gas. That means consumers don’t have to radically change their driving behaviors, which will give extended-range electric vehicles the edge in sales in a few years, Pike research analyst John Gartner told VentureBeat.

“We expect that the Leaf is likely to maintain the lead in sales in North America at least through 2012,” said Gartner, who added that he expects the Volt and other pure-hybrid and extended-range vehicles to start selling better than battery-powered vehicles in 2013.

Most electric car buyers are more concerned about how long it takes to charge the car and how far it is able to drive than the actual price of the electric car, according to a report by Accenture. Pure plug-in electric cars are typically limited in how far they will go on a charge. They can also take a long time to recharge.

The Leaf is a pure plug-in electric car that can travel around 100 miles on battery power before it needs to recharge. Nissan has taken the lead in the small but fiercely competitive low-end electric car market. Nissan has now sold 3,875 Leafs compared to GM’s 2,745 Volts sold in the first half of the year. The Volt’s sales likely didn’t grow as quickly as the Leaf because GM said it was pulling back on its Volt supply to issue more demonstration cars to dealerships.

While the cars operate in very different ways, they’re both designed to attract mainstream car buyers looking for a more environmentally friendly option or a way to save money on gas. The Volt has an equivalent fuel efficiency rating of 93 miles per gallon while it is running on pure electric power, and the Leaf has an equivalent fuel efficiency rating of 99 miles per gallon.

General Motors recently slashed the price of the Volt to around $40,000 to make it more competitive with the Nissan Leaf. The 2011 Nissan Leaf sells for $32,780, while the 2011 Chevy Volt cost around $41,000 prior to the price cut. Electric car buyers can apply for a federal tax credit that can bring the price down by $7,500.

Nissan recently went on the offensive by taking a shot at the Volt in a television advertisement. Sales of both electric cars were neck-and-neck for several months and only differed by around 17 cars shipped at the end of May.

The i3 is designed as a pure electric car, while the i8 is a high-end electric hybrid sports car similar to the Fisker Karma. BMW is also selling a range-extended version of the i3 that uses gasoline to recharge the battery and extend the range of the car called the REx. Both cars are examples of how the range-extension model is becoming an increasingly popular option for electric car manufacturers.

“As a consumer, you don’t have to change what you are doing on a daily basis with these cars,” Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner Ray Lane — an investor in Fisker Automotive — told VentureBeat. “The only thing you do is plug the car into a regular electric outlet when you’re done. Depending on how you drive you could end up filling twice a year.”

The range-extension model uses an electric motor that is recharged with a gas-powered motor. When the battery is empty, the car begins using a gasoline motor to recharge the battery and extend the range of the car. The owner can plug the car in at any time to recharge the battery and save fuel.

Pure electric cars can take several hours to charge and require owners to plan out their days and change their driving habits. Owners of range-extending cars do not technically ever have to plug the car in, but if they choose to do so they can save on fuel costs and don’t have to drastically alter their daily driving routines, Lane said. General Motors’ Chevy Volt uses the same technology, along with the Fisker Karma.

So far, Tesla Motors’ cars have the longest plug-in electric car ranges. The company’s first car, the sporty Tesla Roadster, can travel more than 200 miles before needing to recharge. The Model S is expected to have a range of up to 300 miles between charges for the top-level model. Those are exceptions to the rule, though, because most electric cars have limited ranges. The Nissan Leaf — though much cheaper than Tesla’s products — can only travel around 100 miles before needing to recharge.

“Mass market EV adoption will be driven by the world’s leading automakers, like BMW, which will leverage their mass production, distribution and service channels,” Kachan & Co. managing partner Dallas Kachan told VentureBeat. “It will ultimately be the automotive giants that will win the EV race, we predict.”

The i8 looks like a sports car straight out of the movie Tron. The car goes from 0 to 62 miles per hour in less than 5 seconds, according to the site — comparable to the Tesla Roadster’s  0-60 acceleration in 3.7 seconds. The car also has an equivalent fuel efficiency rating of 94 miles per gallon, according to the company. The car can travel around 20 miles on pure electric power before switching to gasoline, compared to the Karma’s 50 mile range.

The i3 is a more practical car, similar to the Nissan Leaf and General Motors’ Chevy Volt. It’s a much lighter car and uses carriage-style doors. The REx model will include a small gasoline-powered motor that recharges the battery when it runs out of juice. If other similar cars are an indication of price, the i3 will cost somewhere between $33,000 (the cost of the Nissan Leaf) and $40,000 (the rough price tag for the Volt.)

But the i8 model will likely not be cheap, if similar cars like the Fisker Karma and the Tesla Roadster are any indication. The Karma costs more than $90,000 and the Roadster costs more than $100,000. But both cars are geared toward high-end car buyers, like buyers looking for a Porsche Panamera. It’s a niche market, but it’s a good way for BMW to enter the electric car market, if the success of Fisker Automotive and Tesla Motors is any indicator.

“We have started assembling the Beta vehicles,” Tesla Motors’ Model S Program Director Jerome Guillen said. ”While most Betas are intended for testing to prepare for production, a few are earmarked for visits to North American Tesla stores later this year.”

The Model S sedan (shown in an image above) is geared toward casual car buyers and those buying electric cars for the first time. The production model will come out in the United States around the summer of next year and in Europe toward the end of 2012. It recently completed its alpha models for the Model S and has begun quality testing them, meaning demonstration models for press and analysts will be out by the end of the summer.

Tesla added 900 new reservations for the Model S last quarter — which requires a cash down payment of $5,000 — bringing its total reservations for the Model S up to 4,600. The Model S is priced at $57,000 before government incentives for purchasing an electric car. About 75 percent of the reservations for the Model S came from U.S. car buyers, while the rest came from European buyers.

Tesla Motors’ cars have some of the longest plug-in electric car ranges. The company’s first car, the sporty Tesla Roadster, can travel more than 200 miles before needing to recharge. The Model S is expected to have a range of up to 300 miles between charges for the top-level model. The Nissan Leaf — though much cheaper, at $32,000 — can only travel around 100 miles before needing to recharge.

Tesla Motors is also working on a sport-utility electric car called the Model X. That will use the same powertrain the Model S uses, but the company hasn’t said when the car will come out. Tesla also inked a deal with Toyota to provide additional powertrains for the company’s RAV4 sport utility electric vehicles, which brought the company $100 million.

Sunlogics specializes in developing and installing rooftop solar panels that generate small amounts of electricity — enough to charge an electric car, for example. That’s useful to electric car manufacturing companies because it helps emphasize the clean-energy benefits of driving an electric car or hybrid electric car, like GM’s Chevy Volt.

“The auto companies are exploring this not only because it emphasizes the environmental benefits of driving an electric vehicle, but also because in some instances it can make business sense in reducing the cost of electricity,” Pike Research senior analyst John Gartner told VentureBeat.

General Motors has contracted with Sunlogics before to install solar panels at its facilities. Sunlogics will continue to install solar panels on top of GM facilities and Chevrolet dealerships as part of the deal, company officials told VentureBeat. Sunlogics will use the funding to create a solar panel manufacturing facility in Detroit, Mich., and a facility in Ontario, Canada.

“We have a trust factor with Sunlogics, we have a history with them, they have the right technology and the right cost point,” General Motors Ventures deputy director Tim Brumbaugh told VentureBeat. “As a result of our investment, they’ll be able to not only manufacture their own (photovoltaic) panels, but focus on their real bread and butter: developing, engineering, constructing and installing the solar panels.”

General Motors is not the only car company investing in solar panel providers for dealerships. Nissan, Honda and Mitsubishi are installing rooftop solar panels on their factories and at dealerships to charge electric cars. It has the double effect of promoting the clean technology as well as reducing electricity costs.

“The trend of solar at car dealerships is very likely to grow over time, especially if combined with an energy storage system such as lithium-ion batteries that can maximize the value of the solar power by avoiding paying for electricity when it is most costly,” Gartner said.

General Motors has installed around 30 megawatts worth of solar panels at dealerships and facilities, Brumbaugh said. The company expects to expand that to 60 megawatts next year. And GM isn’t the only company that is introducing solar panels to manufacturing facilities — many manufacturers outside of car manufacturers are recognizing the cost benefits of installing solar panels, he said.

The “Level 2″ 240-volt chargers can charge an electric car like the Nissan Leaf to an 80-percent charge in around 3 hours. SolarCity sells the chargers outright, but gives their solar leasing customers a discount. So residents who lease solar panels are essentially getting subsidized electric car chargers that are priced below market value.

“We’ll install an electric vehicle charging station whether they’re a solar customer or not,” SolarCity spokesperson Johnathan Bass told VentureBeat. “But if you’re a solar customer it delivers a lot of additional economic benefit.”

The electric car chargers can pull electricity from solar panels installed on homes during the day. They pull electricity from a typical power grid at night, but owners are credited for that electricity when their rooftop solar panels produce it during the day, Bass said.

There are two other types of electric car chargers — a low-volt Level 1 charger and a super-fast 480-volt charging station that can charge an electric car much more quickly.

“We’re doing level 2 today, this is our announcement, but we’ll be open to using additional chargers in the future,” Bass said.

SolarCity leases residential solar panels for a 15-year period, handling all the maintenance during the life of the lease. The electricity generated by the panels powers homes directly, taking some load off the electric grid. The company works in the “distributed solar” space, which is designed to help reduce some of the strain on power grids during peak usage hours when homes are drawing more electricity for air conditioning or, in the future, electric car charging.

The company also works with home owners to introduce a number of other energy efficiency tweaks as part of a program it started in 2009. For example, homeowners can hire SolarCity to install more efficient lighting and cooling services and seal up air ducts for better insulation.

Google recently created a $280 million fund for residential solar power projects run by SolarCity. The fund gives SolarCity the capital it needs to create more reasonable financing options for homeowners who are interested in installing solar panels on their roofs but don’t necessarily have the cash to buy panels outright. SolarCity is also raising $42 million in its most recent funding round.

The next victim of the United States debt crisis could be conditional loan guarantees, says a prominent venture capitalist.

The loan guarantees are one of the financial engines powering many cleantech investments in Silicon Valley.

“I think the loan guarantee programs could go away,” Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers partner Ray Lane told VentureBeat. “I think everybody is concerned about the loan guarantee program, fewer are concerned about (the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program) ATVM.”

A loan guarantee from the Department of Energy helps companies attract buyers and investors for new renewable energy projects. It means the government will foot the bill if the project does not take off or is unable to produce some kind of return for investors. It’s one of the ways the U.S. government is promoting renewable energy.

The loan program comes in three flavors: the 1703, 1705 and ATVM programs. The ATVM program is specifically designed for electric car manufacturers. That program probably won’t go anywhere because of rising gas prices and because of a desire to make the United States as “clean” as other countries with very high gas prices.

The U.S. government has allotted an enormous amount of money to companies like solar panel manufacturer First Solar. The program has issued conditional guarantees valued at around $16 billion to solar power projects and $38 billion to clean technology projects. Other countries stimulate cleantech expansion by other means, like feed-in tariffs. While the loan program is important, Lane said it might not be the right way to approach cleantech funding.

“The role of the government isn’t necessarily to give out loans but to stimulate innovation, and I think we are dangerously close to the government getting out of that role,” he said. “If you look at the amount of greentech R&D this country did over the past couple of years, it’s really tiny; we basically had a $1 billion R&D budget.”

One of the U.S. Department of Energy’s most stellar programs is the Advanced Research Projects Association – Energy, he said. That program allots between $3 million and $5 million for highly disruptive clean technology projects and will likely endure the debt crisis because it is popular, low-cost and has a high potential to create innovative technology, he said.

Fisker Automotive has produced 54 cars and is revving up it production of the high-end luxury electric car. Lane’s Karma marks the first car that was manufactured for consumers and delivered. That means the company might soon be another player in the electric car market alongside Nissan and Tesla Motors.

“There’s a consumer segment that buys $100,000 cars, this is a good way to get into the electric car market,” Lane told VentureBeat.

The Karma sedan is actually a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, similar to the Chevy Volt manufactured by General Motors. The internal combustion engine kicks in to recharge the battery once it’s empty (usually after driving around 50 miles) — similar to the Volt, which can travel between 25 and 50 miles before the internal combustion engine kicks in to charge the battery.

The Karma has a manufacturer suggested retail price of around $96,000 for a basic model and $109,000 for the top-end model. Part of that price probably comes from the car having an actual solar panel installed on the roof that generates around a half-kilowatt-hour of energy each day to charge the battery that powers the internal electric components of the car like the air conditioning unit.

The company is also working on a cheaper electric car — a plug-in hybrid sedan called the N-1. That car should retail for somewhere between $35,000 and $50,000. The Nissan Leaf, one of the cheaper plug-in electric cars, retails for around $37,000, while Tesla Motors’ Model S electric sedan will retail for around $57,000 before government incentives for buying an electric car.

Fisker plans to continue producing the Karma while it manufactures the N-1, while Tesla plans to discontinue its first electric car in favor of the Model S, Lane said. The N-1 will compete more directly with Tesla Motors’ Model S, Lane said. In addition to the N-1, the company also plans to manufacture a convertible and a sport-utility vehicle. Tesla Motors is also working on a sport-utility vehicle, called the Model X.

“I expect there will be more competition from companies like Audi when we are ready to roll out the N-1 — but the ante is around $1 billion,” he said. “As for new manufacturers, there was a five-year window where you could create a car company. This is not easy to do.”

Fisker was able to get into the electric car market because it was able to secure a low-cost loan from the government when the recession was at its worst, he said. The company was also able to buy a manufacturing plant from General Motors for a relatively small amount of money compared to how much the company would pay in stable economic times, he said.

The company is backed by Kleiner Perkins, as well as New Enterprise Associates and A123 Systems Inc. Fisker Automotive raised $190 million just two months ago to help fund the production of its electric cars. The company finished off a recent $100 million round in May led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

The interior of the Fisker Karma shows off just how much of a luxury car this is designed to be. The battery of the car actually runs down the center of the vehicle.

The Karma is designed to compete with other high-end cars like the Porsche Panamera and some more expensive Mercedes models, which cost upwards of $100,000.

The Karma is underpriced when compared to other top-level luxury cars and sports cars. “It’s because we didn’t know what we were doing,” Lane said.

Ray Lane takes the keys to the first Fisker Karma car at a media event on Tuesday. He said he had driven the vehicle in Los Angeles, Calif., where Fisker is based.

Boris Zingarevich, a Russian timber baron and investor, was named by a court-appointed trustee as the winning bidder for Think. Zingarevich is also is the principal investor of U.S. lithium-ion battery maker Ener1. After Think failed to raise new investments and sought bankruptcy, Ener1 – which supplied lithium-ion batteries to the carmaker – took a huge impairment charge on loans it made to Think.

The Think City, an all-electric sedan, carried a price tag of around $34,000, putting it on par with the Nissan Leaf. It also travels around 100 miles before needing to recharge — equivalent to the distance the Nissan Leaf can travel. Think will now be a part of a new company called Electric Mobility Solutions, and is effectively rescued.

The company faced some pretty stiff competition, given that the Leaf has taken the lead in the small market for electric-car early adopters. Not only did Think struggle with the tremendous upfront cost to manufacture an electric car, it also competed with two popular cars — the Chevy Volt and the Nissan Leaf — sold by major manufacturers in the same price range.

“There is room for more specialty vendors of city EVs, but not at the original price listed,” Pike Research analyst John Gartner told VentureBeat. “Prices have to be at least as low as the leading known brands such as Mitsubishi.”

Nissan has taken the lead in the small, but fiercely competitive, low-end electric car market. In the first half of 2011, Nissan sold 3,875 Leafs, while GM sold 2,745 Volts. In June alone, after GM pulled back on its Volt supply to supply dealers with more demonstration cars, the carmaker sold 561 Volts. Nissan, meanwhile, sold 1,708 Leafs in June.

But both car companies have been unable to keep up with demand from early adopters for electric cars, which has been tremendous, Gartner said. That means there is room for a company like Think to sneak in and steal potential customers from General Motors and Nissan.

“Demand for pure electric vehicles from early adopters has exceeded production from GM and Nissan, so alternative companies have a window during the next few years to be a part of the expanding market,” he said. “However, more delays and continued financial problems could narrow or close that relatively short window of opportunity.”

Most electric car buyers are more concerned about how long it takes to charge the car and how far it is able to drive than the actual price of the electric car, according to a report by Accenture. Pure plug-in electric cars are typically limited in how far they will go on a charge, and they can take a long time to recharge.

The powertrains, which Tesla uses in its Model S and Tesla Roadster cars will now ship in Toyota’s RAV4 car in a deal that will net the company $100 million, according to a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The powertrain system includes a battery, charging system, inverter, motor, gearbox and associated software that are deployed in Tesla’s current fleet. Tesla Motors will produce equipment for the RAV4 between 2012 and 2014, according to the filing. That means the deal likely serves as an extension to a deal Tesla Motors and Toyota originally signed to produce an electric RAV4 in July last year.

Tesla Motors outperformed investor expectations in its last operating quarter thanks to its deal with Toyota in producing the RAV4. The company also sold battery components and chargers to Daimler for its Class-A and Smart Fortwo electric vehicles.

Tesla Motors makes the sporty Tesla Roadster electric car. The company was planning to stop producing models in the next several months, according to Elon Musk. But a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission indicated that the company purchased an extra 100 Lotus Elise chassis to continue producing Tesla Roadsters.

“It’s a wise strategy to diversify on their part, they’ve built some intellectual property into battery management and drive train technology,” John Gartner, a senior analyst at cleantech research firm Pike Research, told VentureBeat. “It’s the return of a vehicle that was interesting to a lot of folks, and the new battery and drive train might make it more attractive.”

The car has proved somewhat popular because it’s a sporty model with one of the largest ranges for an electric car. It appeals to sports-car enthusiasts because it can go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in 3.7 seconds and has a top speed of 125 miles per hour. But it does carry a hefty price tag of $109,000. The company said it had sold 1,650 Roadsters by the end of its most recent operating quarter.

The electric car maker is still working on its second car, the Model S sedan (shown in an image above), which will be geared toward casual car buyers and those buying electric cars for the first time.  The Model S costs a slightly more reasonable $57,000 before government incentives for purchasing an electric car. The production model will come out in the United States around summer next year and in Europe toward the end of 2012.

VentureBeat has contacted Tesla Motors for additional details about the deal.

Like other new electric cars, the Volt is only available in a few states. Before today’s announcement, it was available in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Connecticut, California, Michigan and Texas, a representative of the company said. The Leaf initially rolled out in California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona and Tennessee. California is the only state where the two cars overlap right now. Volt deliveries will begin in North Carolina and South Carolina in August, company officials said.

Nissan has taken the lead in the small, but fiercely competitive, low-end electric car market. The company sold 1,708 Leaf cars in June. That puts it well ahead of General Motors, which sold 561 of its hybrid electric Volt cars in the same month. Nissan has now sold 3,875 Leafs compared to General Motors’ 2,745 Volts sold in the first half of the year. Sales likely didn’t grow as quickly as the Leaf because General Motors said it was pulling back on its Volt supply to issue more demonstration cars to dealerships.

General Motors recently slashed the price of the Volt to around $40,000 to make it more competitive with the Nissan Leaf. The 2011 Nissan Leaf sells for $32,780, while the 2011 Chevy Volt costs around $41,000 prior to the price cut. Electric car buyers can apply for a federal tax credit that can bring the price down by $7,500.

While the cars operate in very different ways, they’re both designed to attract mainstream car buyers looking for a more environmentally friendly option or a way to save money on gas. The Volt has an equivalent fuel efficiency rating of 93 miles per gallon while it is running on pure electric power, and the Leaf has an equivalent fuel efficiency rating of 99 miles per gallon.

The Volt has a traditional internal combustion engine and an engine powered by a battery jammed into the same vehicle. The car can run around 35 miles off battery power before the internal combustion engine kicks in, giving the car a total range north of 300 miles on a full charge and full tank of gas. The Leaf is a pure plug-in electric car that can travel around 100 miles on battery power before it needs to recharge.

Nissan recently went on the offensive by taking a shot at the Volt in a television advertisement. Sales of both electric cars were neck-and-neck for several months and only differ by around 17 cars shipped at the end of May.

Most electric car buyers are more concerned about how long it takes to charge the car and how far it is able to drive than the actual price of the electric car, according to a report by Accenture. Pure plug-in electric cars are typically limited in how far they will go on a charge, and they can take a long time to recharge.

Nissan sold 1,708 Leaf cars in June. That puts it well ahead of General Motors, which sold 561 of its hybrid electric Volt cars in the same month. Nissan has now sold 3,875 Leafs compared to General Motors’ 2,745 Volts sold in the first half of the year.

It’s the first indication that Nissan has taken an early lead in the fiercely competitive, but still very small, race for electric car sales. While Volt sales have risen incrementally, Nissan Leaf have gone up by around 50 percent each month for the past few months.

Nissan’s Leaf sales were more than double that of the Volt in May, with the company selling 1,142 cars in the month. General Motors sold 481 Volts in May, which is about the same as 493 Volts it shipped in April. But sales likely didn’t grow as quickly as the Leaf because General Motors said it was pulling back on its Volt supply to issue more demonstration cars to dealerships.

While the cars operate in very different ways, they’re both designed to attract mainstream car buyers looking for a more environmentally friendly option or a way to save money on gas. The Volt has an equivalent fuel efficiency rating of 93 miles per gallon while it is running on pure electric power, and the Leaf has an equivalent fuel efficiency rating of 99 miles per gallon.

The Volt has a traditional internal combustion engine and an engine powered by a battery jammed into the same vehicle. The car can run around 35 miles off battery power before the internal combustion engine kicks in, giving the car a total range north of 300 miles on a full charge and full tank of gas. The Leaf is a pure plug-in electric car that can travel around 100 miles on battery power before it needs to recharge.

Nissan recently went on the offensive by taking a shot at the Volt in a television advertisement. Sales of both electric cars were neck-and-neck for several months and only differ by around 17 cars shipped at the end of May. The Leaf is cheaper than the Volt, but it also can’t travel anywhere near as far as the Volt and takes a while to recharge.

General motors recently slashed the price of the Volt to around $40,000 to make it more competitive with the Nissan Leaf. The 2011 Nissan Leaf sells for $32,780, while the 2011 Chevy Volt cost around $41,000 prior to the price cut. Electric car buyers can apply for a federal tax credit that can bring the price down by $7,500.

Most electric car buyers are more concerned about how long it takes to charge the car and how far it is able to drive than the actual price of the electric car, according to a report by Accenture. Pure plug-in electric cars are typically limited in how far they will go on a charge, and they can take a long time to recharge.

The filing indicates that Tesla Motors will sell Roadsters through the first half of 2012. Tesla Motors has now purchased a total of 2,500 Lotus Elise chassis from Lotus. The company was planning to stop producing models in the next several months, according to earlier reports. The company’s chief executive, Elon Musk, said the company was on track to run out of Roadsters at the end of the year.

The car has proved somewhat popular because it’s a sporty model with one of the largest ranges for an electric car. It appeals to sports-car enthusiasts because it can go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in 3.7 seconds and has a top speed of 125 miles per hour. But it does carry a hefty price tag of $109,000. The company said it had sold 1,650 Roadsters by the end of its most recent operating quarter.

The electric car maker is still working on its second car, the Model S sedan, which will be geared toward more casual car buyers and those buying electric cars for the first time.

The Model S costs a slightly more reasonable $57,000 before government incentives for purchasing an electric car. Tesla Motors added 900 new reservations for the Model S last quarter — which requires a cash down payment of $5,000 — bringing its total reservations for the Model S to 4,600. The production model will come out in the United States around summer next year, and then in Europe toward the end of 2012.

Tesla Motors’ cars have some of the largest plug-in electric car ranges. The Tesla Roadster can travel more than 200 miles before needing to recharge, and the Model S is expected to have a range of up to 300 miles between charges for the top-tier model. The Nissan Leaf — though much cheaper at $32,000 — can only travel around 100 miles before needing to recharge.

The company is also working on another electric car model, called the Model X, that’s geared toward car buyers interested in an SUV or a minivan. Details about the Model X have been scarce — one of the few facts known about it is that it will use the same power train as the Model S. The car should be unveiled at the end of the year, Musk said.

While the company said it was on track to be profitable in the future once it releases the Model S, it recently raised another $210 million to cover the costs of producing the Model X. Musk first indicated that Tesla Motors might raise additional funding for the Model X in the company’s most recent conference call to discuss its quarterly earnings.

The state of California allocated $7 million last year for rebates to qualified electric car buyers. The popularity of the federally-mandated Cash for Clunkers program sent car buyers out in droves. Spurred on by high gas prices, early adopters were eager to go out and buy electric and hybrid-electric cars.

The next fiscal year’s budget allocates between $12 million and $17 million for a similar rebate program. But the budget has yet to pass and the state cannot begin spending money on the program until it does.

Electric vehicles are more expensive than those powered by an internal combustion engine. The Nissan Leaf, one of the cheapest electric cars on the market, is still quite expensive at around $33,000 before rebates.  It’s supposed to have a relatively low price tag and it’s labeled by Kelly Blue Book as the first electric car for the masses. The Nissan Leaf qualifies for a $1,500 rebate.

Electric car buyers can also apply for a federal tax credit that can bring the price down by as much as $7,500. Along with the state-funded rebate program, the federal credit can the cheapest electric cars down to a range of $20,000 to $30,000 — around the cost of a mid-to-upper-range gasoline-powered car.

Hybrids have more reasonable price tags. Toyota’s newest hybrid car, the Prius c, could attract more mainstream car buyers with its $23,520 sticker price.

Most electric car buyers are more concerned about how long it takes to charge the car and how far it is able to drive than the actual price of the electric car, according to a report by Accenture. Pure plug-in electric cars are typically limited in how far they will go on a charge and can require long charging times.

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk said the company was on track to run out of Roadsters at the end of the year. The electric car maker is still working on its second car, the Model S sedan, which will be geared toward more casual car buyers and those buying electric cars for the first time. The company said it had sold 1,650 Roadsters by the end of its most recent operating quarter.

Tesla’s debut car, an electric sports car based on the Lotus Elise chassis, carries a hefty price tag of $109,000. The car appeals to sports-car enthusiasts because it can go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in 3.7 seconds and has a top speed of 125 miles per hour.

The Model S costs a slightly more reasonable $57,000 before government incentives for purchasing an electric car. Tesla Motors added 900 new reservations for the Model S last quarter — which requires a cash down payment of $5,000 — bringing its total reservations for the Model S to 4,600. The production model will come out in the United States around summer next year, and then in Europe toward the end of 2012.

Tesla Motors’ cars have some of the largest plug-in electric car ranges. The Tesla Roadster can travel more than 200 miles before needing to recharge, and the Model S is expected to have a range of up to 300 miles between charges for the top-tier model. The Nissan Leaf — though much cheaper at $32,000 — can only travel around 100 miles before needing to recharge.

The company is also working on another electric car model, called the Model X, that’s geared toward car buyers interested in an SUV or a minivan. Details about the Model X have been scarce — one of the few facts known about it is that it will use the same power train as the Model S. The car should be unveiled at the end of the year, Musk said.

While the company said it was on track to be profitable in the future once it releases the Model S, it recently raised another $210 million to cover the costs of producing the Model X. Musk first indicated that Tesla Motors might raise additional funding for the Model X in the company’s most recent conference call to discuss its quarterly earnings.

VentureBeat has contacted a representative from Tesla Motors for additional details.

The costs of getting production back up and running in Japan after the massive earthquake and tsunami forced Nissan to take its Japanese production plant offline. The company was slated to build a production plant for the Nissan Leaf in Smyrna, Tenn., that will produce up to 150,000 Leaf vehicles every year. Those plans have been pushed back until December next year, according to Automotive News.

Production of the Leaf has been stalled several times in the past six months, due to a glitch in the air conditioning system and the earthquake among other issues. The ambitious electric vehicle has a relatively low price tag (by EV standards) — still a hefty $33,000 — and is designed to attract a wider swath of drivers to the electric car market. It’s labeled by Kelly Blue Book as the first electric car for the masses.

Nissan’s Leaf sales were more than double that of the Volt in May, with the company selling 1,142 cars in the month. General Motors sold 481 Volts, which is about the same as the 493 Volts it shipped in April. But sales likely didn’t grow as quickly as the Leaf because General Motors said it was pulling back on its Volt supply to issue more demonstration cars to dealerships. The 2011 Nissan Leaf sells for $32,780, while the 2011 Chevy Volt cost around $41,000 prior to the price cut. Electric car buyers can apply for a federal tax credit that can bring the price down by $7,500.

The higher sales are an accomplishment for Nissan, which regularly faces hurdles in bringing the Leaf to the United States. The company said it is on track to deliver 20,000 Nissan Leaf cars to people who have reserved them by September. General Motors has shipped around 1,700 Volts since the vehicle went on sale last year, while Nissan has shipped around 1,000 Leafs.

Nissan recently went on the offensive by taking a shot at the Volt in a television advertisement. Sales of both electric cars have also been neck-and-neck for the past five months and only differ by around 17 cars shipped. As of the end of May, Nissan had sold 2,184 Leafs while General Motors had sold 2,167 Volts. The Leaf is cheaper than the Volt, but it also can’t travel anywhere near as far as the Volt and takes a while to recharge.

The U.S. government has set ambitious targets for both the Volt and Leaf, based on its goal of having more than 1 million electric cars on the road by 2015. The U.S. government expects GM to sell around 500,000 Volts by 2015 and Nissan to sell 300,000 Leafs by 2015.