Venturi

A French company building exotic cars in Monaco and Columbus, Ohio (wait, where and where?), Venturi is developing the “America” — a jacked-up, two-seat electric dune buggy. The thinking, apparently, is that Americans will buy anything with generous ground clearance, hence the high-riding America roadster. With 300 hp and a whopping 54 kilowatt-hour battery pack (that’s more than twice the capacity of the Chevy Volt’s battery), the America seems likely to achieve its promised driving range of nearly 190 miles.

Fisker Automotive

Befitting its sublimely sophisticated founder Henrik Fisker, Fisker Automotive is blessedly short on bluster and credibility-eroding unfounded claims (in contrast to some other notable electric car start-ups). Instead, the company is quietly building substance to match the slinky looks of its Karma extended-range electric prestige car. The company says it has 3,000 “pre-orders” for its cars and plans to sell them through a network of 42 dealers nationwide.

Tesla Motors

With the arrival of financial angel Toyota, Tesla’s immediate future is solidified as the company moves from its racy Lotus-derived Roadster to developing its $56,500 Model S luxury sedan. This baby will rocket from 0 to 60 in 5.6 seconds and top out at 120 mph when Tesla gets it into production. Doubt about that eventuality should be eased by the $30 million investment in Tesla by Panasonic and Tesla’s deal to electrify RAV4 SUVs for Toyota, giving the startup company some stability as its gears up for production of the Model S.

Coda Automotive

With a contract to provide electric cars to Hertz, Coda looks to be solidifying its footing as a player in the electric car business. The company plans to kick off retail sales of its new electric car in California in 2011 and will roll out sales to the rest of the country soon after. The California-based company does final assembly in the Golden State using sub-assemblies imported from China. The company’s challenge will be to interest U.S. customers in buying its unremarkably generic compact sedan for $37,400 when they can now just as easily buy one from a mainstream automaker.