Not too long from now, a sensuously curved sports car designed by a German and made with American parts will roll off an assembly line in Finland and quietly mark the first clear break from our century-old dependence on crude oil for transportation.
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Although the car looks like sex on wheels, with a long, swoopy hood and flared-out wheels, it is a marvel of engineering that re-imagines the automobile from the power plant to the solar-panel roof for an era when cheap, clean, plentiful electricity will push expensive, filthy gasoline to the sidelines. It's ready to roll for around 4 cents a mile.

The power for the Karma comes straight from a standard electrical outlet, no fancy charging apparatus required. And unlike the Toyota Prius, the hybrid gas-electric darling of the eco-friendly set today, the Karma could run its entire life without ever sniffing gas.

For while the dirty secret of the Prius is that it's powered by a conventional internal-combustion engine that switches to electrical power in low-demand situations, the Karma is an electric vehicle that requires only a short recharge boost from its small gas engine if traveling 50 miles from its base.

The big idea behind the Karma, which will initially cost $80,000 while in limited initial production, is that the best alternative to crude oil for transportation is not a new fuel or technology but simply efficiency. The genius is that it transforms electricity generated by anything ranging from a home solar-panel system to a utility company's wind turbines into a fuel that can power a strong, safe, well-appointed, roomy car on the average commuter's trek to work and back.

In fact, if you're among the 60% of the U.S. population that drives less than 25 miles each way to work, you may never have to buy gasoline again. If you do decide to take it out on the open road for a trip across the state, this plug-in electric hybrid vehicle, or PHEV, will get about 100 miles to the gallon -- at least double the Prius' fuel efficiency. That's not bad for a car rated to jump off the line to get to 60 mph in 5.8 seconds

Less battery, more space
PHEVs are much more efficient than their gas-powered cousins because electric motors are better at turning a single Btu of energy into motion, in part because they produce no wasted heat themselves. They're also better because we have many more low-emission, U.S.-based ways to produce electricity -- natural gas, solar, nuclear and wind, for example -- than we have sources for liquid fuels.

The problem with electric-car motors up to now has centered on the batteries. Laws of physics make it hard to create batteries that hold a big enough charge to provide a lot of juice and are still light, small and safe enough to fit into a passenger vehicle without compromising fit and finish. The densest batteries, which provide the most juice, also tend to require the longest recharge times.
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The problem with electric cars is:

1. they are relatively expensive;

2. they require sophisticated supply networks to provide for the battery technology, which also relies on supplies of exotice elements that cannot sustain a large switch to EVs;

3. in a serious economic crisis it is simplicity, not complexity, that will prevail.

A small Diesel engined car getting 100mpg will be much cheaper and more effective than any foreseeable EV. The cars I am seeing at the moment are still stuck in the "performance" paradigm, which is incompatible with efficiency and getting the best out of EV technology. Very rich folk might buy one on a whim, but that's as far as it goes.

That said, I could imagine that home-made EVs based on truck batteries might make an impression if things got that bad.

The problem with electric cars is peoples expectations of electric cars
What would suit my family ( and many other city dwellers ) would be a small short range car that can manage the school runs, shopping trips, run to work etc.