One has to wonder how much of this commercial EV enthusiasm is being driven by legislation. Not that it's always a bad thing, legislation brought us improved vehicle crashworthiness, seat belts, fuel injection and variable valve timing. EV's have such a narrow range of cost advantage though, i.e. everything has to be just right and for a extended period to break even or have an advantage, otherwise you're upside down. But throw in mitigating influences like a carbon taxes, green incentives, subsidies and other "artificial" conditions and I'm thinking these, and not core EV advantages are what's driving the industry to switch. EV's aren't really "better" but the fossil fuel solutions become too miserable to tolerate. Because the economics of it are so veiled and imponderable I don't think much weight is being given to the actual cost impacts, but I don't think it's a stretch to say it will only cost more, buried into the overhead of daily life in the forms of food, goods and services. It might be argued the fossil fuels offer the same degree of future uncertainty and 2nd/3rd order effects but it does have the benefit of historical trends and data. I think the key enabler to EV's is a battery that doesn't rely on rare materials or toxic processes. With that in place, the rest of it amounts to power generation and distribution which are well characterized. Maybe lithium only needs to be a temporary bridge between today and the holy grail simple/inert battery of the future.
Mark B.
Albuquerque, NM
www.caranddriver.com
. Up here that happens in a lot of households. 
. People dip their tows in with one EV in the household. By the following winter there are quite often two. 
