I know someone who built a lead-acid truck that can go 80 MPH, climb hills no problem, and has a range of 100+ miles, all using low-tech components (no regenerative, etc). It would be even better if he could swing the cost of an induction motor and controller. The benefits, he stated, were that the batteries are housed in the bed of the truck which is designed to carry weight, it’s completely separate from the cab and enclosed in case of accident, and we’ve been recycling lead-acid batteries for 100 years with virtually no waste of the working materials (copper, lead). Lead’s health effects are well-known and techniques to work with it safely have been in place for decades. This is much in the vein of your post - that the total cost is more important than the “feel good” aspects of this. And, lead-acid batteries, until the regulations and artificial shortages of lead hit, are inherently cheap to build and buy.
I actually like this approach to the electric car far better than GM/Toyotas. Makes far more sense...but as cool as your fiends car is as a project (and it definitely is cool!) it still suffers the same issues of lost energy in the conversion of electricity. Not as much as the big boys experiment in futility, granted. But Thermodynamics will not be denied, much as we wish it could be.