Actually, this level of vehicle is being worked on as well, and I do believe they will be practical.

If not fully electric, at least some hybrid form should work.




The wife's car, which is a full size (and to me luxury car), gets over 50 MPG at times when driven in a reasonable manner. But she isn't one to let a speed limit stand in her way, and getting up to that point is to be done as fast as possible, so her average MPG is lower than mine when I drive it.

Sure, some day the batteries will have to be replaced and then old ones recycled, but the cost of that is spread over a lot of miles. Well over 100K in fact. Break that cost down by the miles driven and it's not going to have anything but a tiny effect on the overall MPG and cost equation.


Full electric will be a viable avenue as the mileage constraints open up. When you can go over 400 to 500 miles on a charge, and the vehicle cost comes down, I believe we'll see a lot more of the electric cars on the road.

Perhaps most of the body will become a solar panel that works with the braking systems and other devices?



As an aside:

My beach buggy can go 40+ miles on a charge, and the island is only something like 12 miles long, so I'm good to go... :-)