Most reviews of electric vehicles focus on range anxiety, at a guess this is more do with opportunities to re-charge than the distance/charge, typical numbers seem to be in the 100 - 200 km range. I live in an area of controlled parking which is next to a railway station. A statistically invalid survey of the parking permits of the vehicles in our road, suggests that 40% have travelled less than 1 km and that the remaining 60% have travelled less than 5 km and are parked in a garage or driveway at night. The record shortest journey is 150 metres. Whilst many of these vehicles are capable of crossing continents, most don't. Whilst I have not lived in the US, I have spent a lot of time working there driving the American Dream (a.k.a. a Dodge Neon), even with a full schedule it was rare to travel more than 150 km in a day. so with the significant exception of family holidays and trips to granny, range for many people is not an issue.
Cost is harder to deal with. Half an hour of Googling and doing things with a pencil resulted in the following conclusions, first that electric cars are expensive to buy and secondly if charged up on-off peak electricity, cheaper to run. What that does for my wife's 40 km commute is not obvious.
A neighbour recently described me as an "eco" because I rarely drive and prefer my bike, but I'm male and therefore lust after low slung sports cars (although my car-boot bike maybe quicker around town, sadly, beyond the city limits its not a contest). I might drool over a Tesla.
I dispute the claims that electric vehicles produce zero emissions. In the UK electricity is produced from a variety of sources including coal, gas, nuclear, wind and solar, last time I looked, CO2 emissions were around 0.4 to 0.5 kg/kwh for the country as a whole. The environmental issues are at the point of generation not the car. The fuel for electric vehicles is coal, gas, nuclear, wind and solar rather than petrol.
In the context of a sustainable energy economy, electric vehicles offer personal transportation using renewable sources such as wind and solar. Equally important is that they are mobile storage devices. A typical car spends 5% of its time on the road and 95% waiting to go somewhere. Wind and solar sources produce energy at the whim of the weather and fossil/nuclear sources are most efficient at a constant load, this is why off-peak electricity maybe half the standard price. The storage capacity of electric vehicles could be used to improve energy management as a peripatetic part of a smart grid.
At present, the case for electric vehicles is not proven, a situation made more complex by the availability of subsidies. Subsidies are a good economic tool to bring about change, but they can also be proof of the doctrine of unforeseen consequences.
A not to close look at the electric vehicles on offer suggests that they "not petrol driven". As electric vehicles are a new technology, maybe the starting point should be elsewhere. A few times when I have been meandering through the countryside I have been overtaken by a golf buggy. These vehicles cost around £4,000 (I think) and have been adapted for use on the Moon, so making them fit for the daily commute should not be too great a challenge. A vehicle costing £5,000 with low running costs and a range of 200 km would be the car most people need, but maybe, not the car they want. However, make a low slung version with good curves and you have a Sinclair C5 - Who said they were a bad idea?
Safety on the roads is an issue and the ability to survive a collision is important, once you have been in accident, this is not an academic concern. Much as I love my bike, I am acutely aware of it's vulnerability and I nag my children to wear cycle helmets. The city I live in is flirting with 20 mph speed limits, does a 20 mph environment offer the potential for lighter vehicles?
Postscript
After I finished this post, I saw an innovative electric trike, driven by a combination pedals and an electric motor fuelled by four lead acid batteries and a Mars bar. I gave chase, but quickly lost contact before I could ask the owner's permission to take a photo.
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