If nothing else, electric cars arouse the passions of their supporters. Take the note we got from reader Ryan, who wrote:

I googled "electric car update" and found your site ... saw the Nissan Leaf (100 miles per charge), Chevrolet Volt (40 miles), Tesla Roadster ... sounds great! But nothing on Tesla Model S, a passenger car that gets up to 300 miles per charge! Why was it excluded?

"Excluded" seems a bit harsh, but here's an expanded version of what we wrote back to Ryan, to give him (and everyone else reading this) some context and a reality check on how we operate.

The 2010 Tesla Roadster and its 2008 and 2009 predecessors have been on sale for 18 months, and the 2011 Nissan Leaf and 2011 Chevy Volt will arrive in dealerships before the end of the year.

But the Tesla Model S is much further out, with the company now claiming that it will go on sale "during 2012" which could mean more than two years from now--and as a 2013 model.

Final specs, designs, and dates have not been released for the Model S, and quite a lot of uncertainty remains about what the production version will be and how it will differ from the concept vehicles shown thus far.

Until we have final info, we will treat it the 2012 Telsa Model S all-electric sports sedan as an announced product--meaning we'll report on the details when they are confirmed--rather than a final production vehicle.

And if and when the consensus of the industry becomes that the Model S will in fact be built in volume, then we'll treat it as a production model. Until then, it's an announcement.

Hope this helps, Ryan, and thanks for visiting AllCarsElectric.com.