The real reason we don't have EV cars is energy density.
Short of RadioActive decay, you can't get more energy per pound than gasoline, and gasoline related products. Gasoline is a **** good product!

You wanna know why there will NEVER EVER be a solar powered family car?
The SUN does not put out enough energy! Literally!

The sun, on a good day, puts out 1500 watts per square meter.
Let's be totally ridiculous, and say you have 100% effiecient PV cells, and you have an SUV with 10 square meters of surface on the roof and hood.

On the clearest, brightest, cloudless, sunny summer day, the MOST electricity you can get from the sun is 15,000 watts. ( 20 horsepower ).

Now in reality, solar is about 50% efficient, ( you can use about 50% of what hits your roof ). Now, best case senario is 10 hoursepower. Now add clouds, or a low sun angle in winter, and you get 5 horsepower.

Plugging in at night means you burn fossil fuel miles from your house, and then have to convert it up and down in voltage, and transmit it 10's or 100's of miles, all of which has losses, which = wasted power. You would be better off to just burn the gas in your car and forget all the lossy conversions!

( In rare and limited places ( like 5% of the U.S. ) Hydro Electric "may" have a net advantage to plugging into the grid at night, since you're not burning FF... )

My point is, there are law of phisics you cannot breach, no matter how much money you spend, or what technology comes along.

WE DO NOT NEED Electric Cars!

WE NEED CARS THAT TAKE LESS ENERGY! ( need fewer Horsepower )

Once you get people used to the idea of driving 5 HP cars, electric becomes viable. Once you get cars down to 5 HP, all kinds of options become viable.

A 100HP electric vehicle will "burn" the same amount of fuel as a 100HP gasoline car. FACT OF NATURE... NOT UP FOR DEBATE.

A Btu is a Btu, a Joule is a Joule, a calorie is a calorie, and a watt is a watt.

What we need as a race of people, is to learn how to do more with less.
( Unless you want to go nuclear... then all your problems are solved, quite easily, and quite cheaply.)

In a couple hundered years, I would not be at all surpirsed if nucler power dominates. Necessity is the mother of all invention. Right now, we don't need to go nuclear. Gas is STILL the best bargain on the planet.

Hybrids are a step at CONSERVATION. Hybrids do more with less waste. They do not get something for nothing. With the regenerative brakes, they simply waste less. Also, my Hybrid, around town, runs at about 140 degrees. Cooler than any conventional car engine. ( Don't know how "cool" a Pruis runs at, but probably similar.) A lot less of my gas is going into waste heat. That is something rarely discussed on these groups.

A battery only car may be a very convienient car. It may have a "niche".
From a scientific standpoint, it has little advantage, maybe none at all over other vehicles. THIS is why we don't have them everywhere. If they were such a great thing, private parties who were not "in bed" with the oil industry would be making EV's all over the place.

Try making one yourself, as a hobby or "kit" car. You'll soon find it has fewer pros than cons.

IMHO, Hybids are cool because they waste less fuel. They recycle.
It's like using your plastic fork twice before throwing it out and getting a new one. It'd doesn't make new forks, and it can't use the same one forever... but it creates less waste, from many angles.

-J