Car companies are hustling to develop practical, mass-appeal electric cars right now. But in 1998, the Nissan Altra EV was already there. Here’s why this revolutionary vehicle you’ve never heard of didn’t pan out, and what it’s like to drive today.

The Altra was one of a number of electric vehicles born the last time folks thought battery electric vehicles were going mainstream. Anybody remember California preparing to enforce a mandate that by 2003?

That’s how we ended up with short-lived oddballs like the Honda EV Plus and electrified Chevy S-10s, Ford Rangers, and a Chrysler minivan lugging enormous battery packs as forays into combustion-free propulsion designed for mass appeal.

But the only one most people remember is cigar-shaped General Motors EV1. The sleek and low two-seat EV1 was more accessible too, leased through several Saturn dealers in Arizona, California and Georgia from 1997 through 1999.

Though, of course, GM pretty much all known EV1s in 2003. That car, like the Altra, was too far ahead of its time for its own good. And the high cost of battery packs made it a hopeless business case at any significant scale.

The Altra was an adaptation of another experiment from 1990s: the ’97 R’nessa. The idea was to converge the qualities of a wagon, SUV, minivan and sedan into one package, before Buick tried the same thing with the Rendezvous, and before we just started calling all things like that “crossovers.”

“We were on a trajectory to produce a EV that was mainstream transportation of the future,” Nissan North America historian and senior manager Dave Bishop said in an interview with Jalopnik. “We were not on a mission to produce an EV sports car. At the end of the day, we’re Nissan and a mass market manufacturer.”

, was Nissan’s first genuine foray into making a consumer-oriented electric vehicle. Despite Nissan’s financial pressures in the ’90s that resulted in numerous niche cars going extinct, the electric vehicle program persisted. While California’s first electric vehicle mandate ended up being scuttled due to political pressures, Nissan’s efforts didn’t go unnoticed when it became part of the Renault-Nissan alliance in 1999, culminating in the first-generation Leaf in 2010.

Still, the decade-long gap between the Altra and Leaf is noticeable. And that so few ended up in the hands of private drivers meant there was no EV1-like public outcry when Nissan asked for them back.

The one I drove was given to various Nissan employees while its U.S. headquarters was in Southern California. When the company relocated to Tennessee in 2006, the Altra was part of a number of vehicles in its heritage location relocated. As far as anyone knows at the company, it’s the only Altra that’s still drivable.

And “drivable” is a generous term for the state of this Altra, along with the pair of Hyperminis Nissan has stashed away at its Tennessee headquarters and in the basement of the nearby . Time and neglect has not been kind to the Altra’s battery pack and it can only be powered up by a comically obsolete charging paddle that has gone the way of a factory tape deck. Bishop says something will have to be done to preserve it for the future.

“Battery degradation affects range as opposed to performance, like if it had a 10 gallon gas tank and five years later it has an eight gallon gas tank,” he said. “The motor itself shouldn’t be a problem. We’d take out the battery pack and put in a modern lithium or whatever the new technology is. What we have to do is find out how to charge it.”

Get past its unremarkable looks and let it sink in that the Altra marked a turning point for electric cars as we know them today. Passengers sit on the batteries that are relatively compact in design, while being able to sit in comfort as they quietly move down a main road.

Its 85 MPGe rating from the EPA may not sound impressive to the current Leaf’s 112, but the Altra would still beat the likes of the Jaguar I-Pace or some versions of the Tesla Model X. And with the wagon-like body and higher driving position, it appeals to the heart of what the new car market has evolved into, even if modern electric cars are skewed towards the luxury end of the market.

“It’s critical that EV that are out there are affordable to the masses,” Cogan said. You look at the Audi, which is pricey. Like the Jaguar, like every Tesla. It’s very important to have vehicles that are affordable range. It’s a commitment the automakers have to make.”

Nevertheless, Nissan persists. The Altra represents Nissan’s thinking from two decade ago of making a mainstream electric vehicle and it may finally come to fruition with the 2019 Leaf Plus and more significant 215-mile EPA rating. There’s enough reason to believe a Rogue EV isn’t that far away from reality, given the popularity of that vehicle and that body style.

Ready or not, electric crossovers are having their moment in 2019. This wagon/minivan/SUV thing stuffed full of laptop batteries from the 1990s helped show the way.