Right now, a more serious limitation is the lack of places to recharge the battery. But I'm willing to bet that places such as hotels (especially them) will see a way to make a profit by providing recharging facilities. If they price the service right, we can still save a bundle on "fuel" for our trip, though it'll cost more for the recharge than were we doing it at home.

Also, there are several battery technologies that appear on the verge of breakthroughs in both range and recharging times. If one of those pays off — well, who knows what'll happen, especially if prices are reasonable.

And there are other technologies as well, such as hydrogen fuel cells, though those are almost certainly not going to pay off as quickly if for no other reason the absence of refueling infrastructure.

Finally, given the leaps and bounds in solar energy technology, I'll be astonished if we don't see that becoming part of the transportation equation, and sooner rather than later.

In terms of purely electric vehicles, of course you're right at this time. Let's hope I'm right in my speculations.

1) Price-point a key for the average American…because of the economic situation, the big seller will be the vehicle that can come in with a price between $20,000. to $25,000…maybe up to $30,000.
2) Crash-worthiness of some of these radical designs is important, with the anticipated significant size difference among vehicles on US roads.

I will buy if these concerns are dealt with.

I realize each has its drawbacks, largely associated with relative costs, which is why I'm all for every government that can do so at all (including my own in the U.S.) to devote as much support as is possible, within the constraints of fiscal responsibility.

When I was I kid, my family lived on a small ranch in northeast Texas. We had a medium-size animal barn, and a windmill beside it, primarily to pull up water from the water table, lift it to a storage stank off the ground, then provide drinking water for the animals — via a wind-created electrically-powered pumping system to pump the water automatically when the trough level dropped to a certain point. My Father realized he might even be able to power a light or two inside the barn via the windmill for when we had to be there at night — and he was right.

Yes, he kept a small diesel generator as an emergency backup, but it was rarely needed.

And that's just one example from wind.

We have been damming up rivers for generations to control flooding and generate electricity. Maybe we should be flowing that water through massive algea farms, cleaning the water for reuse downstream, pressing the oil from the algea for fuels, and using the pressings to produce high protein livestock upstream.

So stop with the "we should use" crap. We already ARE! Remember NYC losing it's power completely because of a malfunction at the falls? Half of New England lost power for a long time.

Your convoluted Hydrogen/Zinc idea is completely unfounded. Why would you even bother? It would work as well as putting a generator on your dog.

electricity can be made from an outside force, like a waterfall. Half of the northeast USA is powered ALREADY by Niagara Falls. I cannot see any "Ocean turbine", unless there is some kind of canal that has a really strong and fast current. Wind is barely ok., but not very much electricity comes out of it, and the worst is solar panels. If you are simply adding to the grid, fine, but it will not even come close to being sufficient, even if you have 5000 solar panels! Nighttime and cloudy days are quite a negative for solar anything.

Gas is not a bad way to power your car. There is NO "Co2 global warming" anyways, so don't worry. If your government really believed in man caused warming, then they would not require a catalytic converter in your current cars, which converts various gasses in your exhaust into CO2! Think of how many catalytic converters are out there pumping that horrible Co2 (the same co2 that all vegetation on Earth need to survive and is absolutely harmless to the environment)

I am not a greenie at heart, but I predict that governments will so heavily tax any conventional use of petroleum products that enventually only zero emission vehicles such as hydrogen or totally electric cars will be affordable to drive.

Upcoming generations of photovoltaic (rooftop) systems will probably be so effective that the majority of household power needs will be supplied.

My twisted logic is that high gas prices are a good thing. The intensive research on electric cars would never have reached the current frenzied pace were it not for the high current prices of oil products.

Sincerely, Dr. Walter Morrow