An Electric Car for $6,000

If you live in a Tulsa retirement community and have always wanted to own a low-speed electric town car, now is the time to buy.

Zenn Motor Company is winding down its car business and targeting Oklahoma drivers. Why? Oklahoma offers a 50 percent tax credit on electric cars. Zenn's low-speed vehicles – which top out at 25 miles per hour and are sold to retirement communities, army bases and college campuses – qualify for the credit. That brings the price down to $6,000. (Rebellious retirees take note: Drivers can tinker with the governor to get past the 25 mph limit.)

Zenn was one of the first new wave electric car manufacturers, but it never really achieved escape velocity. The low speed vehicle market potentially could be somewhat large, according to backers, but it's also not the glamorous, high-margin wing of the car business. In the most recent quarter, Zenn reported less than $400,000 in revenue.

Zenn will make the cars through 2010 and then has no plans after that. The Zenn City, a freeway-legal car based around an ultracapacitor from EEStor that has been promised and delayed for years, has shifted to become a "technology platform." In other words, Zenn won't make it. (It has been delayed several times.) The company though will show it off to other manufacturers and try to license it.