Chrysler, all but left for dead by most industry watchers, surprised just about everyone in Detroit this morning by announcing it has not one but three electric vehicles in the pipeline and we'll see the first of them in showrooms by 2010.

The stunning announcement instantly propelled the smallest of the Big Three automakers to the front of the pack in the race to bring an EV to market and places it in direct competition with the Chevrolet Volt that General Motors unveiled last week. Chrysler's joining GM in betting that electric cars are the future, and it's gone all-in with a make-or-break lineup that includes range-extended versions of the Chrysler Town & Country minivan and Jeep Wrangler SUV and an all-electric Dodge sports car.

"We have a social responsibility to our consumers to deliver environmentally friendly, fuel-efficient, advanced electric vehicles, and our intention is to meet that responsibility quickly and more broadly than any other automobile manufacturer," says Bob Nardelli, chairman and CEO of the struggling automaker. "The introduction of the

Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge electric vehicles provides a glimpse of the very near future and demonstrates that we are serious and well along in the development of bringing electric vehicles to market."

These cars aren't mock-ups. Chrysler says we'll see 100 of them in test fleets next year. One model – the company isn't saying which, but some analysts say it's probably the yellow two-seater pictured above – will be ready for sale by the end of 2010, the same deadline GM has set for the Volt. "We are well ahead of where people think we are," company co-president Jim Press said at the unveiling before taking a shot at cross-town rivals GM: "Perhaps that's because we haven't tooted our horn up to now."

Chrysler isn't tooting its horn with this announcement. It's playing a Sousa march.

Although Chrysler's recently introduced two hybrids, no one saw this coming from a company where sales are down 24 percent – about twice the declines seen by the industry as a whole. But Chrysler's been working nonstop on these cars since launching the ENVI electric vehicle team about a year ago. It rolled out a few concepts at the Detroit auto show in January, but no one took them seriously and even Chrysler's own dealers grumbled it isn't moving fast enough to develop EVs. "This was the best-kept secret in the auto industry," Aaron Bragman, an industry analyst with Global Insight, told us. "Basically what they've done is lock the ENVI people in a room and throw a lot of money at them."

Unlike the gas-electric hybrids like the Toyota Prius and the forthcoming Honda Insight, the wheels of the three Chryslers will be driven only by electricity. The minivan and Wrangler will have electric motors (255 horsepower in the minivan, 268 in the Jeep) that will go 40 miles on a charge. The small gasoline engine acts only as a generator to keep the battery charged as it approaches depletion, keeping the vehicle going at about 50 mpg. It's similar to what GM is putting in the Volt. The as-yet-unnamed sports car will be a full-electric vehicle like the Tesla Roadster with performance to match.

The Dodge EV, based on the Lotus Europa, has a 268-horsepower electric motor that will propel the car from 0 to 60 in less than five seconds. Chrysler says its lithium-ion battery – which could come from A123 Systems, one of two companies working with GM on the Volt – will provide a range of 150 to 200 miles and charge in six to eight hours. "It's a great tribute to our engineers," Tom LaSorda, company vice president, told the Detroit Free Press.

It's a safe bet the electric two-seater is the car we're most likely to see in showrooms first. The company reportedly will work with Lotus under an arrangement similar to those that led to the Tesla Roadster and Vauxhall VX220 (and could bring a return of the Fiat Dino). Cribbing from Lotus saves Chrysler the time and trouble of designing a car, and going with a full electric prevents the headaches of integrating an engine into an already complex vehicle.

"I'd say there's a 75 percent chance they'll hit that deadline," Mike Omotoso of J.D. Power & Associates tells us. "They've got the Europa and they can learn from the mistakes Tesla's made. It's an aggressive timeline, but I think they can hit it."

That leaves the minivan and the Jeep; the analysts we talked to said we'll probably see them in 2011. While some people are clamoring for a small city car, a minivan and a Jeep make sense for Chrysler because they are "signature" vehicles that have long been the company's bread and butter. Basing them on existing models also allows the automaker to bring them to market faster because it doesn't have to engineer new platforms or engines.

Photos by Chrysler