Dylan Smith wrote:
On 2013-01-02, wrote:
A couple of orders of magnitude of improvement are needed to make things
like general purpose, e.g. C-172 equivelant, electric airplanes practical.

Oh, I completely agree with you on that point.

But I think that battery technology will in the not too distant future be
eminently practical for most of the world's use case for a car.

If by "not too distant future" you mean 50 years, than I think a big
maybe.

Absent some astounding breakthrough in portable electric generation, i.e.
all devices such as fuel cells and not just batteries, I doubt the all
electric vehicle will ever become a significant fraction of vehicles on
the road.

Hybrid vehicles stand a much better chance, the biggest current obstacle
being the huge premium in cost.