[citation][nom]okibrian[/nom]The problems are range and price. But I'll save on gas, right? Yes, but then you have to replace that battery every 3 years or so at around 4-5k. Maintenance also cost a lot more as well. We can talk green all we want, but the green that really matters most to people is the green that sits in my wallet.[/citation]
The battery replacement is not as bad as I thought it would be. I have been doing some research on this lately as I am looking towards having a total 'solar home' over the next 10 years or so, and the thought hit me that if I am going to have any surplus energy, then I should use it to power an electric car. From the little research I have done the battery replacement is actually closer to ~8-12 years if you treat it right and let the battery properly deplete before recharging it, and doing full charges instead of partials.
Maintenance is also cheaper on an all electric car, because there are less things that can go wrong with it. electric motors are MUCH simpler machines than engines are, and it is quite literally a battery, a variable resistor, and then electric motors. That is your drive train. No clutch system, no differential, no gear box or transmission, no oil changes, no coolant, there are brakes but as they are not used as often they need to be maintained much less, etc. Very little can go wrong, and what parts are used are relatively simple and the only reason they are expensive is because they are not mass produced in the same quantity as traditional engine parts. There is some complication with energy recapture systems, the addition of solar to power accessories, etc. But even then it is still an overall much simpler design than a gas car.
Truth be told there are 2 major barriers to the electric car:
1) Batteries suck; they are slow to charge, they are heavy as hell, they are hazardous if they break in an accident, and they wear down over time. Battery tech is improving, but they really need to look into more of a fuel cell electric vehicle. It is more difficult (but not hard) to charge the cells, but they are a much denser energy, they could be fairly simple to swap out or refill at a gas station if they were standardized, they are less hazardous/risky in an accident, and they do not wear down over time. It is not a perfect answer, but it would be a pretty good one.
CAFE standards also don't help the battery front. They require better MPG (and eMPG) over a fleet, while also requiring other safety things which make cars heavier. If cheap cars were as light as they were 20 years ago we would be seeing much better MPG in traditional cars (I have read some optimistic guesses of ~60mpg, and more realistic ones of ~40mpg for a mid sized car instead of the subcompact that we see getting those now). Electric cars already have weight against them due to the battery pack, and adding an ever increasing feature and safety weight to them do not help things.
2) there is no infrastructure yet. Laying high amperage electric everywhere would require insane amounts of materials and labor. I don't believe charging stations everywhere is the answer, but even if it is, it would not be an overnight change. Also, if a significant portion of the population replaced gas with electric, then the demand would make electricity much more expensive as power companies would have to upgrade their infrastructure and power plants to keep up.
The other alternative and dream is to have a solar/electric car that charges all day in the parking lot (would not be an option for everyone, but it would suit a lot of us pretty well). Also, solar cells last a really long time (~25 years), which means that the only thing you would have to pay for would be the battery every 10 years, plus 'normal' maintenance, which is not much on an EV. If solar got really good then the battery would only be needed as a buffer for the solar panel, and for night driving; If things ever got that good, then it would mean that they could get by with a much smaller/lighter battery, and it would solve a lot of problems. But obviously solar power is not there yet, and it would take the surface area of ~4-6 cars right now in order to charge a car throughout the day. It would be the perfect answer... if only the solar tech were there behind it.
There are other 'passive charging' ideas floating around, but it does not take a whole lot of research to realize that those are simply impractical to put them everywhere, and they are so extremely inefficient that they would just waste power. Great for small stuff like the Nokia 920 though.
But ya, EVs are simply not ready right now for mass consumption. But if things keep moving the way they are, then I think we will see some appealing mainstream EV cars within the next 10 years, and I would bet that they would become 'popular' with some cheap daily driver style cars within the next 20.