Tiny electric Subaru prowling the streets of New York

The Subaru R1 is a tiny little car -- it's a two-seater built for efficiency in Japan. This car was never really intended to make its way out of the Japanese market. But now, with Smart Car reservations on the rise in America ... Subaru might be changing its mind.

Subaru has been testing an all-electric version of the R1 (called the R1e) in Japan for about a year. The Li-ion battery pack can power the car to a top speed of 65 mph for about 50 miles before recharging.

This works out pretty well in Japan, especially as the battery technology used in the R1e allows for special 15-minute recharges at high-power charging stations. At a standard outlet, the cars take about 8 hours to fully charge.

Now this tiny electric car has made its way to the U.S. Why?

Apparently the New York Power Authority is field-testing a couple of the cars. Whether to test their possible impacts on the grid, figure out if they could make good money providing those high-power charging stations, or just to see if they might be useful things to own ... we're not yet sure.

Via AutoBlogGreen