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Having fun reading this thread.

But to go back to the article's touting of "Plug-in" electrical vehicles ( that's non-hybrid) as the latest and greatest, it totally ignores the population distribution of the good old US of A. As of 2005 the total urban population of the USA was approx. 232,000,000 from a total pop. of just under 300 million (2005).

Now most of FR are blessed with single family homes with garages and or driveways. And for such plug-in stations, aside from their costs, are just fine.

However there is a substantial population that does not share this advantage. In urban centers with high density apartment buildings a car owner is reduced to either street parking at random locations or garages, which might be attached to the building or nearby. Street recharge is not possible. A commercial garage would require major retro-fitting to provide charging points. The garage owner wants to recoup his investment and will add his surcharge to the utility's rate. There goes that imagined low/free electric cost.

To provide secure charging that means a lockable plug compatible with that of the car. Course there will be midnight clowns that will l try to cut the cable to steal juice.

The suburbs bring similar problems. In many of the older suburbs or quasi-suburbs such as NYC's outer boroughs there are few garages or driveways for single family homes/ Worse they are very nearly totally dependent on random street parking with no commercial garages in the neighborhood. These folks will be SOL with their electric only vehicles.

The suburban co-op/condo clusters present the same problems.

Bottom line is that a whole new electrical infrastructure would be necessary for all these juice joints, independent of the efficiency of batteries.