I was sitting at home last night with my finger stuck in my naval, and it suddenly dawned on me.

Electric cars, are a waste of time. A rip off. A knee jerk reaction, and full of toxic waste waiting to be dumped. They dont work, they will never work. Unless by some miracle somone comes up with a battery that can give the car a range of over 1000 km before re charging.

The next reason Electric cars wont work. Imagine having to wait 8 hours to refuel your car. Or on a hot day like we can get here in Melbourne where the temp can and will reach 43+ deg C. We turn on the aircon and all of a sudden we are using up that 8 hours it took to refuel at twice the normal rate. God forbid the sun setting while still 200 km from home, but we cant drive in the dark with out lights. So now we have a car that on a fine day, one that is not hot or freezing that maybe can travel 1000 km, providing it can arrive at it's destination before sunset. If it's hot/freezing and you need to drive into the night, you might be lucky to get 300 km before you have to stop for 8 hours to re charge.

I am no expert, just an average Joe and if I can see the inherent problems with owning an electric car, why car'nt the supposed experts. Now I hear you say, they are ideal for inner city commuting and the ease of parking and recharging when not in use. For a select few I suspect this may be so but for the great majority, it would be an added and unnecessary expense.

So what will the long term future be ? I don't know, maybe hydrogen, or maybe some Geek somewhere will come up with something completely new, but I do know it wont be battery powered electeic cars. 

and it won't be hybrids either. whats the point of having a car that can run on petroleum and eletricity? you stick batteries and electric motors and a petrol/desiel engine in it. how much does the thing weigh now? answer-nearly twice as much as a normal car. so you drive it in petrol lugging around batteries and electric motors. yeah, that will save lots of petrol. so you run it on electricity and you are lugging around a petrol engine and a tank of gas. yeah, that will save lots also. if you call that progress, it won't be long before horses are back in fashion as transport.

Most people drive less than 40 miles a day. EV have a range from 80 to 120 mile. Fast charge stations can charge the EV battery in 10 minutes ro 80% state of charge. Hybrid cars get double the mileage in stop-an-go traffic.

Under last year’s stimulus package, nearly $200 million will support Nissan’s introduction of the Leaf by permitting the installation of 13,000 charging stations around cities in Oregon, Washington, California, Arizona and Tennessee in the next year or so. (Nissan plans to build the Leaf in Tennessee eventually.)

If electric cars do take off, consumers and society could benefit. Battery-powered motors are more efficient than gasoline engines. They cost drivers on average only 2.5 cents a mile for fuel, less than a third of the cost for a highly efficient gasoline car, according to proponents.

We need to get off oil...

Technology evolves. Remember first cell phone? Look at it now.

The petrol powered car gave us the ability to go anywhere we wanted, when ever we wanted in good time with very few fuel stops in just about any weather condition.

Yes I am very aware the electric car is very cheap to run but over the life of the car it is not any more eco friendly than the status quo. We still have all the same problems building the car so no change there. What about the batteries when they die and have to be replaced. Cant see them as being any cleaner than petron and oil. Yes it's cleaner when on the move, but it puts extra demand on the generation of electricty and for sure that wont all be clean and green.

Don't get me wrong I like the concept but it is not practicable. There are too many built in constraints and I can only see electric cars as being a step backwards for the average Joe comuter.

Can you see a bloke driving a F150 pickup with an electric motor. What would it's range be, or your neighbour in an electric SUV. I cant see full sized cars going in this direction and being successful.

Yes I know they are building re charge stations in all of Australias capital cities also. But Aussie is a big place so what does a bloke do that is 2 days from a capital city do ? tow a solar powered charging station behind him as he travels. The has got to be another way !!!!

Gav, I understand your points, but on the F150, quite a few people who have them don't use them as they are intended. Most don't really need that large of a truck. Same thing about SUVs. Do those well-to-do women really need to drive the large SUV?

why do people start talking about "this is how it is in USA"? its a big world and USA isn't the only country with cars.

People dont always buy cars so they can use them as they were intended to be used. They buy them coz they like em and want one. Eco green cars will still have to pander to the market. The US car industry has for too long buil cars that people dont want, hence the large number of European and Jap cars on US roads today. If they want to survive and move ahead, they will have to cater to the market and come up with something better than an electric car.