Electric Cars Are An Extraordinarily Bad Idea

[DS4]

I own Honda I2, but still believe that the article raises some valid points.
In my opinion, the perfect car is just around the corner, 3-5 years in the future. It will be a plug-in gasoline/electric hybrid with about 30 miles all electric range.

No range anxiety, much lower cost compared to all electric car due to a much smaller battery, and drastic reduction of gasoline consumption (all electric daily commute for most people, gasoline engine required only for longer trips).

Basically, we are talking about the 2015-16 model plug-in Prius or Accord.

Chevy Volt is a also a valid effort in this direction, but way too expensive and inefficient when driven only on gas.

[Eli]

It's likely going to take a breakthrough in battery technology for electric vehicles to become mainstream. Or gasoline at $10/gal. I agree that PHEVs will likely be the transition to pure electric vehicles, but it's only a matter of time before the ICE goes the way of the dodo, at least for automobiles.

A gallon of gasoline contains about 36-37kWh of energy.

The Internal Combustion Engine is a terrible machine - and I'm one of the biggest ICE fans out there. If we had a battery capable of storing 36kWh in a package even 4x the size of a gallon of gasoline from the beginning, the Internal Combustion Engine powered automobile would have never existed. Electric motors are superior in every conceivable way.