The main issue of this thread is moot as modern electric cars aren't going anywhere (with the possible exception of up to the 7-11 for some Ben and Jerry's for Ed Bagley Jr)
-- We don't have the GRIDs it would take to charge all of those electric cars. Especially the 'pie in the sky' hype about the ones that pick up a full charge in two hours. OK, so scores of millions all drive their little cars home and plug them in at 6p. Our grids can not cope with a hot day AND NO ELECTRIC CARS all plugging in at the same time.
-- We don't even have a plan to change our grids to be able to handle it at some vague, nebulous time in the future. (That is really a bad sign in Western culture where we're pretty much willing to lie about nearly anything in the future if it will make us a few bucks in the now.)
-- The batteries are expensive, fragile, short-lived and like the steam car in
"The Carpetbaggers" they are not anything that most want to have anywhere near them in a car accident.
-- All 'Rare Earth' minerals come from China. This will not change in the next ten years. Rare Earth minerals are very important to schemes like this. Without Rare Earth minerals your iPod would weigh three pounds. Rare Earth minerals are not being exported by China the way they have been in the past. Without Rare Earth minerals all of this talk of efficient electric cars is nothing but hucksters pumping venture capital and hoping for inflated IPOs. My point here is that if Westerners decide that they MUST drive electric cars they will, in fact, be made in China into the significant future.
Frankly, I don't even think that Americans are dumb enough to go this route, especially after it is pointed out to them repeatedly that for all of their 'greener than thou' smugness they have somehow figured out how to feel good about electric cars that actually run on coal. Yup, that's right, in the States most electricity comes from coal. And yes, it will have to be pointed out repeatedly.
Hey, what could possibly go wrong? I ax ya?
If I like coal I'm a Luddite, but if I support today's electric cars that run on coal I'm warm, fuzzy, green and adorable.