Even as Ford Motor Co. was delivering a fleet of polished new electric cars to utilities around the nation last week, the auto maker got in a dig about their cost.

To utility executives' considerable irritation, Ford officials told everyone within earshot that their Ecostars--the experimental electric version of Ford's European minivan--were being leased for $100,000 a crack. And even that, said the Ford people, didn't come close to the expense of making them.

In their expanding campaign to overturn California's 1998 deadline for marketing the first commercial electric cars--an effort that includes heavy-duty lobbying of officials in Sacramento, from Gov. Pete Wilson on down--the Big Three auto makers hope to use price as their most powerful lever.

Without a breakthrough in battery technology, they argue, electric cars will cost too much to be practical for ordinary consumers. And "there is not going to be any battery breakthrough," John Wallace, Ford's technical manager for electric cars, declared in Detroit the day before an Ecostar was delivered to Detroit Edison Co. for testing.

"It's like old Michigan football," Wallace said. "Three yards at a time, over and over. We're just going to have to slog it out."

Proponents of electric cars, however, believe that some technology has already slogged far enough. They are beginning to fight back to preserve California's 1998 mandate, even as they try to keep public peace with the auto makers.

"We're convinced that U.S. companies are on the leading edge of worldwide electric-vehicle technology today, and the mandate brought them there," says John E. Bryson, chairman and chief executive of Southern California Edison Co.

On Tuesday, representatives from the five largest California utilities, several environmental groups and the budding electric-car industry met quietly in Sacramento to coordinate efforts to counter the Big Three's campaign against the electric car.

Electric utilities could reap substantial profit from the transportation fuels market--an average of $100 to $200 a year per electric car, according to the California Electric Transportation Coalition. Given their more optimistic assessment of the state of battery technology--along with a basket of federal, state and utility incentives for buyers--the utilities contend that some electric cars are practical even now.