This speed demon is charged by a 3.4 liter V8 engine which comes equipped with a lithium ion battery pack that can be charged from almost anywhere, not to mention whenever you hit the brakes as well.  No word yet on the pricing but you can safely assume it will be in the 6 digit field (estimates have been set near the $500,000 mark), and is not expected to be listed for sale on the market for at least another year, probably closer to 2012 or 2013. The bad news is that you probably never will own one of these babies, or anything close to it, but the good news is that future cars will benefit from these technological break-throughs and the overall quality of regular day-to-day cars will be enhanced. Way to go Porsche!

Nissan has joined the race to create and sell the first practical electric car, and they plan to do it come 2010 -  approximately 1 year from now. The Nissan Leaf, as they call it, is expected to achieve up to 100 miles per battery charge with a top speed of 75 mph. The leaf is a pure electric car that runs on lithium-ion batteries and can hold up to 5 passengers. This battery is estimated to fully recharge within 8-16 hours, depending on the wattage of the outlet.

The target economies for this new future electric car are the United States, Europe, and Japan. The starting price for this innovative sedan will be somewhere between $25-30,000, a price that is much less than its prestige rival, the Tesla Model S which costs $58,000 and debuts in 2012.  Hopefully these new electric cars pave way for making future cars less expensive and less oil-dependent.

The new Scion iQ, Toyota’s next highly anticipated car is hoping to make its way to the U.S. come the end of 2010/early 2011. This new mini car is supposed to be more eco-friendly, able to achieve almost 55 miles per gallon. The best part of this new Scion is most definitely the new look. The previous Scions have always been quite boxy looking with not as much appeal, but this one seems to turn the tides.

The iQ will be able to sit 3 people, 2 in the front and 1 smaller individual in the back. The price is estimated to be about $15,000 and over 25,000 orders have already been fulfilled. This car will also be taking over much of Europe and Japan, as those two markets will be Scion’s area of focus.

The Tesla Roadster, first unveiled in 2006 at a California car show, is one of the most coveted electric cars available in today’s market. Some of the impressive specs of this electric beauty are that it can travel approximately 250 miles on a single charge from its lithium-ion battery pack, accelerate from 0-60 mph in 3.7 seconds (faster than a corvette), and can fully recharge in less than 3.5 hours.

Some of the downers of this car include a hefty price tag at around $100,000, a $1,000 delivery fee, a battery pack that only lasts 100,000 miles and costs a whopping $36,000 to replace it, and the inability to travel long distances. Surely, this is a car for the rich and famous. Hopefully, one day it will become more practical for the every day driver.

Is the future of cars headed towards water powered cars, or is this just wishful thinking? Japanese car company Genepax has recently unveiled a mini car that supposedly runs purely on H2O. How it works is by using a built-in energy generator that extracts hydrogen molecules from water and converts them into electrons, which are then used to power the vehicle.

Many people are still skeptical about this design, saying that such a water-powered car would require more than just water and that it has too many limitations (such as speed and safety). While this eco-friendly car seems ideal in solving the world’s oil crisis, only Japan will start manufacturing the Genepax and will set the starting price at roughly $18,000. This water-powered car is also said to reach speeds of up to 50 mph and acheive almost 200 miles per gallon of water.

Now onto the bigger question: how much does it (or will it) cost? Estimates have been set at approximately $194,000 and the release date is set for 2010. Kind of exciting to see, especially since there’s hope the price will drop in years to come as competition arises.