A surprise from Chrysler

Friday, Sept. 26, 2008 | 2:07 a.m.

Chrysler had rather unsurprising news for its dealers this week — it has lost $400 million so far this year. This was reported by The Wall Street Journal, along with a reminder that Chrysler lost $1.6 billion last year.

This news alone would probably have merited a small story buried in the paper’s Marketplace section. It is not surprising anymore when an American car company announces a huge loss.

But the story made it onto the section’s cover, and it got the biggest headline.

That’s because it also contained a genuine surprise — Chrysler has been working on electric cars since January 2007, and good ones, if a prototype driven by reporters is any indication.

Until now, most of the publicity about American-made electric cars’ possibly becoming the wave of the future had gone to General Motors, which for two years has drawn attention for its promised Chevrolet Volt. That car is scheduled to go into production in 2011.

“We are well ahead of where the industry observers thought we were,” Chrysler President Tom LaSorda told the Journal. “We kept a pretty good secret.”

The paper said reporters were allowed to test drive a battery-powered Dodge sports car at a track near Chrysler’s headquarters in Auburn Hills, Mich. The car “quickly zoomed to 100 mph,” the paper reported.

Also reported was that the car is designed to travel between 150 and 200 miles between recharges (in standard electrical outlets), and that Jeep Wrangler sport utility vehicles and Town & Country minivans are being designed so that gasoline engines will act only as supplements to their electric batteries.

Chrysler said one of the vehicles — it wouldn’t say which — will be introduced at the end of 2010.

This is the kind of innovation that will help end our addiction to oil, bring about cleaner air — and most likely enable American car companies to start making money again.