Well, the good news is that the world has changed, and affordable electric vehicles are here today, in the form of electric bicycles. Detroit icon Lee Iacocca told the story at 1997's International Electric Vehicle Symposium in Orlando, FL about how Thomas Edison promised Henry Ford a battery and motor that would be practical for an auto, back in the 1930s. Iacocca is right.
Electric cars are tantalizingly close, but still in the future.
If you look at an electric car through the paradigm of today's fossil fuel auto, they don't go as far and are more expensive to buy. There are over 1.4 billion bicycles in service today, and only about 340 million cars. Far more humans ride a bicycle every day than drive a car. Let's look at the electric bike. Electric bicycles can go farther and faster than conventional bicycles.