Reuters reports that Fiat chief Sergio Marchionne has halted Chrysler’s electric vehicle program. Over the past two years or so Chrysler has been trotting out electric concepts under an internal development program named ENVI. At last January’s North American International Auto Show, for example, they had no fewer than four such vehicles on display and were promising to plunge headlong into electric cars and trucks over the next few years.

Marchionne doesn’t believe that current battery technology is viable for use in electric automobiles and doesn’t think that electrics would sell in sufficient numbers to warrant further development. While Chrysler had been showing off concepts such as the Dodge Circuit almost every chance it could, no mention of any electric vehicle program appears in the five year plan that Marchionne revealed to the public last week.

--M.D.