A $70K sell price excludes 99% of the buying public.
Conversion efficiency is certainly something that is optimized for, along with durability, servicability, emission, power, range, operating cost, immunity to environment, etc etc etc. There's a long list of competing factors that must be balanced in order to optimize the vehicle. Letting one factor dominate creates a niche vehicle: a supercar, or an econbox, etc. My point was that electric vehicles place a lot of emphasis on power conversion efficiency, to detriment of other real world factors, and they carry a huge cost. The costs do not exceed the benefits, and I doubt they ever will for general purpose transportation for one final reason. When it comes down to it, electricity is not a fuel. It is an energy storage medium.
First of all, I’ve read lots of critical reviews on the Leaf, but none that have pegged the real world, worst case scenario range at 40. The number I’ve seen is around 70, but that still means you are limited to 35 miles out, if you need to have enough charge left to get home. You are essentially making my point which is a long range EV is available, but the price makes it impractical unless you have money to burn. Batteries in the pipeline now may bring that cost down dramatically, but that’s at least 4 years out, maybe more.
Second: What do you mean by “Optimized for Conversion” All electrical motors have a very high efficiency for converting stored energy to torque at the wheels. This isn’t some trade off that is being made, this is just an inherent characteristic of electric motors, so I don’t understand what you mean when you say that an EV has been optimized for conversion at the expense of range. The higher the conversion efficiency, the more range is extended.
Also how is an electric motor “optimized for durability or servicibility” in a manner that reduces range. Electric motors have one moving part and can last almost forever, this again is a characteristic of electric motors and is not some trade-off that you only get at the expense of range. Also on servicibility, one of the pluses of EV’s is that they require minimum service, no oil change, no tune ups, no transmission, no exhaust. These are not characteristics that are somehow gained at the expense of range. So when you say that an EV is optimized in these areas, and imply that this is at the expense of range, exactly what do you mean.
Maybe you mean something else when you say “conversion”.