Here in TN they have built a network of charging stations at Cracker Barrel restaurants. The idea being you can make a triangle between Knoxville, Nashville and Chattanooga and have refueling stops for the Leaf along the way. I looked at one of these stations to see if people are paying for the electricity (they’re not). I did some googling and discovered that there is a (subsidized) company that you can get a card from that lets you activate the charger. there is no cost for the card, nor the energy. They are trying to get more grants to put in more of these free stations. This is how they are trying to push this through; make it where you can charge up for “free” and put the cost off on those evil gas consumers.
There are two viable niches:
1) gasoline cars with a SMALL battery (a few minutes capacity) that would allow for regenerative braking, and electric power assist for acceleration or going up hill, to enable having a smaller gas engine but still have decent peak power, and
2) Electric golf carts to enable old people to get around their gated communities and get to the community supermarket and back. The cart doesn't need to have long range, nor be capable of high speed.
In Washington State somebody in the legislature, a democrat, is trying to add a tax on owners of electric cars because they don’t pay gas tax. A real WTF moment.