200907210 Made in India: The $12,000 Electric Car

clipped from www.time.com Members of the Indian Youth Climate Network drive Reva, a low-cost electric car, in New Delhi At a time when almost every carmaker in the world is looking at making environmentally friendly vehicles, a little-known Indian company is jumping the queue by ramping up production of a low-cost electric car called the Reva. Reva faces a growing list of potential competitors that plan to launch all-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles over the next several years. The cars haven't exactly taken the world by storm. Reva — which has received venture capital from Draper Fisher Jurveston, the Global Environment Fund and Mellon HBV Master Global Event Drive Fund — has sold only 3,000 cars over the past eight years. Half of those have been exported to Europe, mainly to London. Despite Reva's relatively low cost, consumers may not be convinced, especially in India, that the car can compete against similarly priced gasoline-powered family sedans. "Reva is yet to hit the price-performance equation