Five electric cars you can buy in 2009

Are you looking for an electric car that you can buy this year? For all the excitement surrounding battery-powered automobiles, there are precious few actually available for purchase right now. While we could have made a top 50 list that included concepts or vehicles only available in other countries, we decided on a compilation that met a very strict set of criteria: none have a gas tank (sorry, Fisker Karma); all will be offered for sale (or lease) in 2009 in America (apologies to the Mitsubishi iMiEV); all can travel at highway speed (you're excused, ZAP! Xebra). Oh, and one last rule: none are conversions of another company's vehicle (so long, AC Propulsion eBox, Phoenix SUT and AMP Saturn Sky).

Now that we've set the ground rules, let's get started.