Chrysler killed the electric car. Er, make that Fiat killed Chrysler’s electric cars. According to Automotive News and Allcarselectric.com the dedicated program overseeing future electric vehicles under the Chrysler/Dodge brand have been shut down. 

Automotive News reports:

Chrysler Group has disbanded a team of engineers dedicated to rushing a range of electric vehicles to showrooms and dropped ambitious sales targets for battery-powered cars set as it was sliding toward bankruptcy and seeking government aid.

With Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne adding:

Marchionne told reporters and analysts that electric cars would only represent “1 to 2 percent” of Chrysler’s sales by 2014, equivalent to less than 60,000 vehicles.

“Until the (battery) storage gets resolved, I think electric vehicles are going to struggle,” he said. 

Just when we had hope that electric cars would be come accessible and sexy, this had to happen. Is anyone really surprised?

(Source: Automotive News, allcarselectric.com)