NEVs, as these little cars are known, aren’t quick, with a top speed of about 25 mph and a range of 40 miles or less. It’s enough for most commuters, with the bonus of zero emissions and potentially low-impact fuel, if the electricity used to charge the batteries comes from clean sources like wind farms.

The Peapod in particular will have four seats (though I’m betting only two of them are usable by humans), be available in seven colors, and be available for purchase in October at $12,500. Again, this puts it right in line with other NEVs on the market, like cars from ZENN and ZAP.

The Peapod Mobility Project comes out of Chrysler’s old GEM electric vehicle group, which is headquartered in Fargo, North Dakota. The smiling Peapod will be manufactured at GEM HQ, making it a made-in-the-USA EV. Happy Earth Day!

Fuel-efficient small cars like the Smart ForTwo and EVs like the Zap Xebra have a built-in cuteness due to their diminutive size. But the 2009 GEM Peapod acutally made me say, out loud, “Oh! They’re adorable.”

Like the Xebra, the Peapod is a neighborhood-electric vehicle, or NEV, so it can’t do highway speeds or ferry your family to Yellowstone for vacation (unless you live less than 30 miles from Yellowstone and have a very small family). Surprisingly, the Peapod is longer and taller than the Smart ForTwo, and even has rear seats. But the NEV’s top speed is 25 mph, where the gasoline-powered ForTwo can do a highway-capable 90 mph.

The Peapod comes from those eco-innovation lovers over at Chrysler’s ENVI outfit, the same folks who brought us the Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge EV designs in late September. The design of the latest little EV is completely new, unlike, say, the Jeep or the Town and Country minivan EVs, and features a lot of glass and a shape straight out of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I’ve blogged about GEM before, back in the dark ages of EVs (early 2008). With the advent of the Peapod, though, the decade-old, North Dakota-based subsidiary of Chrysler got a new-ish name, GreenEcoMobility. Whatever they call themselves, this is a big improvement over GEM’s glorified golfcarts of old. And by old, I mean six months ago.