America is a large country.
That is the part of the equation, which is (strongly) now for gas engines.
Americans need to travel. Sometimes long distances. Very long distances.
Electric cars are not currently able to do that efficiently, so most Americans don’t yet buy them.
ahmmm..... you are correct.
There are however specifics that seem to be overlooked. For urban travel with short commutes of say 25 miles, the electric Fiat or Yugo might have a place.
For intercity or interstate driving, Gas or turbo diesel engines will not likely be replaced.
The USA markets will sort it out if the green wackos can be kept out of the political majority
Yep, for the holidays I’m going to do a round trip from Boston to Chicago. There isn’t an electrically powered vehicle existent (or on the drawing boards) that would do that in under 4 days. Oh yeah, it’s cold so I want to run the heater.
* And cold weather in the Northeast and Midwest severely limits battery capacity and performance (See this Consumer Reports article —http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2013/02/winter-chills-limit-range-of-the-tesla-model-s-electric-car/index.htm — only 176 miles on a full charge in 45 degree weather! Heaven knows the range at 10 degrees.)
* And, of course, in a traditional coal plant,
only about 35% (45% in “supercritical” coal plants) of the energy in the coal ends up as electricity at the other end of the generator, minus 6% in distribution and transmission losses to get to the plug in a Tesla Supercharger station.
In other words, there is no global environmental benefit to electric cars — although an electric car would reduce smog in Southern California. And startup torque is nice.