Here’s another.  It seems every time you look there’s another company making an electric car.  This is definitely a revolution, very similar to the first automotive revolution in the 1920’s when scores of companies rolled out gasoline powered cars.

This time it’s battery powered cars, and Hybrid Technologies, based in Las Vegas, Nevada, is a publicly traded development company with lithium ion battery technology.  They also have several electric cars that are either in the prototype or development phase, which they are offering for sale on their website.

These are interesting cars; they use existing shells, converted to run on battery-electric drive trains.  Here’s the specs on a few of them:

“Smart Car:”  Speed: Up to 80 mph / 128 km/h; Range: Up to 120 miles / 193 km; Charge Time: 6-8 hours with either a 110-120 V or 220-240 V; Battery Weight: There are approximately 480 lbs / 218 kg of lithium cells; Power System: 290 V; Cycle Life: 1500+ charges.

“R-Car:”  Speed: 6 speed gear box allowing speeds in excess of 120 mph / 193 km/h; Range: Over 100 miles / 160 km; Charge Time: 8-10 hours with either a 110-120 V or 220-240 V; Battery Weight: There are approximately 660 lbs / 300 kg of lithium cells; Power System: 370 V; Cycle Life: 1500+ charges.

“Mullen Car“ (pictured):  Speed: Over 120 mph / 193 km/h; Range: Over 100 miles / 160 km; Charge Time: 8 -10 hours on 220 V; Total Weight: 2600 lbs / 1182 Kg; Power System: 320 V; Cycle Life: 1500+ charges.

We tried to call the company to ask some questions, such as “how much do these cars cost,” ”how many prototypes have you built,” and ”when do you expect to have available more prototypes and production vehicles,” to name the obvious.  But nobody answered any of the phone numbers listed on their website, nor on their Yahoo Finance profile.

Speaking of financials, Hybrid Technologies is one of the few next-generation electric automakers that is already a publically traded company.  From their Yahoo profile we can see their ticker symbol is HYBT.OB, and they are based at 5001 East Bonanza Road
Suite 138-145, Las Vegas, NV 89110, and their phone number is 818-780-2403 (but nobody answered the phone).

We can also determine from the Yahoo chart that the market currently values this company at $138.9 million.  From Yahoo’s key statistics we learn the company in the last twelve months (ttm) had sales of $215 thousand, and a net loss of $6.87 million.  Their cash on hand as of the most recent quarter (mrq), which would probably be June 30th, 2006, was $4.1 million.  It is a safe bet this company is in the process of raising additional investor capital.