Most modern compact cars get 1000 km (or even more) on a single tank, so if you don't drive all that much, you don't need to visit gas stations more often than it's just wise to, to check tyre pressures and clean the gunk of your wind shield (this time of the year is pretty bad when it comes to mud flying on the streets).

The difference is, a compact traditional car sells for 15 k€ new, while Leaf goes for 40 k€. Even with European fuel prices, the difference is going to buy you plenty of power juice to drive around – and can get you to your cabin at the neck of the woods without having to stop for a charge if you so wish.

I don't know why you're getting downvoted - my commute is longer than the range of the Leaf. Not to mention that it's a lot more expensive than the petrol-powered competition,even after taking all tax breaks into account. I get that it's quiet and pretty sporty,but it's just not attractive financially in any way or form,unless you literally don't care about the purchase price.

Or if you get e.g. A nice parking spot at work + free charging from your employer + carpool lane access as a single rider + $7500 IRC 30D tax credit + value the smugness from a "zero emissions" vehicle which relies on fossil-fuel-centric energy production in the US and rare earth minerals from around the world where they care much less about greenhouse gas emissions.

I like to track the progress of disruptive tech by how extreme the "but it cant do X" comments get. If the big demographic problem for EVs is people who "don't drive all that much" but do drive a few hundred miles out to their cabin in the woods then it seems they're making pretty good progress.

When stepping out of the comfort zone (i.e. no crawling speed or disabling A/C or heating), Leaf's range is less than 100 miles on full charge.

It's not very much – in fact, quite the opposite. Unless you share the city you live in with, say, your parents, in most cases you probably couldn't make a trip to meet them without stopping to charge.

I'm not saying that the six-year-old Leaf is the answer to all vehicular needs, I'm saying that for people who need to fly to visit their parents, or have a range-extending hybrid as a second family car, or who just don't drive much beyond their commute, then EVs with sub 100 mile ranges still meet 95% or more of their daily driving needs without needing to recharge and there are many happy owners of such cars already.

The demographic that it serves successfully is growing every year, as more cities ban or fine cars with emissions, as battery prices drop, as people get less scared of the new, as people experience and like the peppy driving feel of an EV, as more models are produced by more manufacturers and more niches are filled and as charging networks expand.

I think we can all look back and see amazing progress from cars like the EV1 and how many assumptions have been shattered in the last decade or so. It just amuses me that as this kind of progress happens, then there will always be something to complain about (and the complaints will often be geniune and factual) that just a short time ago would have seemed like science fiction. Like the comedian that talks about his seat-neighbour complaining that the airplane wi-fi is slow.

My personal issue with EVs is that most people who like them don't really understand or refuse to acknowledge that their cars also run on fossil fuels, they're just not doing the combustion under the hood.

  The three major fossil fuels—petroleum, natural gas,   and coal—accounted for most of the nation's energy   production in 2015:

  Natural gas—32%
  Petroleum (crude oil and natural gas plant liquids)—28%
  Coal—21%
  Renewable energy—11%
  Nuclear electric power—9%

src: http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/?page=us_energy_home

It might help reduce emissions directly in city centers, but the power plants are generally not that far from large cities anyway. Since EVs are also much heavier in general (Tesla P85D is ~4936lb vs a Corvette at ~3347lb or a Civic at ~2738lb), even though they are pretty efficient, they're still pretty close (when I ran the numbers before, they were higher) in greenhouse gas emissions once you factor in how much energy it takes to drive one vs an ICE vehicle. Batteries are also pretty nasty to dispose of and have a comparatively short lifetime -- a well-maintained car from the 90s is still very much drivable today (and cars without batteries can be maintained almost indefinitely), while battery packs aren't very useful past 7-10 years.

In that same vein, rare earth minerals are required in much larger quantities for EVs due to the batteries and the motors. Many countries mining and processing those don't care much about the environment, so they're mined and processed in environmentally-irresponsible ways, and we're now massively increasing demand for them. This is from 2010: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/forget-lithium-its-rare-earth-mi...

Because they're sold as "green" and "zero emissions", and due to the various government tax breaks (which even applied to >$100k Teslas and >$1m Porsche 918s), single-driver carpool lane privileges in California (significant because about 50% of EVs sold in the US are in CA), priority parking spots, free (employer-subsidized) charging at many workplaces, EVs are ever more popular despite them being about even from what I can tell for the environment when you look at the total lifecycle vs normal cars. This bothers me. Many EV drivers do not seem to understand the impact their vehicles have, seemingly because it says "zer0 emissions" on the license plate frame.

>It might help reduce emissions directly in city centers, but the power plants are generally not that far from large cities anyway. Since EVs are also much heavier in general (Tesla P85D is ~4936lb vs a Corvette at ~3347lb or a Civic at ~2738lb), even though they are pretty efficient, they're still pretty close (when I ran the numbers before, they were higher) in greenhouse gas emissions once you factor in how much energy it takes to drive one vs an ICE vehicle.

Bigger issue with weight is the road wear and tear it causes. The effect isn't even just linear, but much more than that – some studies have calculated that road wear increases to the fourth power in increased vehicle mass[1].

By that account a 5000 lb. Model S causes 16 times the road wear compared to a 2500 lb. compact car. Also, cars do not “eat” the road, they pollute the local air with it (especially the smaller particulates are very nasty stuff indeed in heavily trafficked areas).

[1]: http://archive.gao.gov/f0302/109884.pdf

And check out the resale value on that Leaf. They should have called it the Brick :)

Tesla roadsters, OTOH, are holding their value very well despite being basically a collector's item at this point.