They may need not need that functionality, but we buy cars for our maximum need, not our minimum need. Other technologies in the pipeline may resolve the battery and range problems while meeting the mandate for cleaner air. Toyota and Volvo will soon introduce hybrid electrics, which run on batteries in city driving and switch to gasoline power on the highway. That would help reduce smogs, since gas engines are least efficient and produce the most emissions at low speeds. California recently agreed that auto makers could sell hybrids and get partial credit toward meeting zero emission requirements.
Car makers are also at work on clean-burning fuel cells that power electric drive motors.
Transportation scholar Daniel Sperling says EVs are an evolutionary step, and they'll share the road with other low-emission vehicles. And what we need to do is, and in fact we're moving in this direction already, is thinking about vehicles being more specialized. It's very uncertain at this point in time which of these technologies will be superior, which will dominate, and it will probably be a mix of those. The EV is getting a lot of attention. People honk, wave, and ask all kinds of questions.