Wrangler

Make
Jeep
Segment
SUV

Early last century, Detroit Electric was at its peak building electric cars. You read that right, and by 1912 it was the market leader and most prolific American EV maker. All told, it sold 13,000 electric cars. Detroit Electric went out of business in the 1930s but back in 2008 it was revived by former Lotus executive Albert Lam. After five years of R&D, the company is ready to get things rolling again as it plans to unveil its all-electric two-seat sports car at the Shanghai Motor Show next month.

Not only are plans in place to begin production, but Detroit Electric claims that a total of 180 sales and manufacturing jobs will be created at its Michigan headquarters, which is located in Detroit's historic Fisher Building. With an annual capacity of 2,500 cars, production of the first model, teased in the image shown here, will begin in August. Details of this car haven't been released just yet but we can already tell that it'll feature LED headlights. Plans are already in place for two other high-performance models that are expected to arrive by the end of 2014. In the future, the company wants to build a high-performance electric sedan as well.