I agree. It's closer than a lot of people think. It's hard to describe an electric car driving experience, but the best way is to say that the accelerator is exactly the opposite of the brake. In that, the more you push it, the more force pushes you into the back of your seat, exactly proportional and instant at all times. There's no lurching from downshifts, or waiting for RPMs for climb, then fall off, then downshift.<p>It's a neat experience, and everyone I know prefers it, but it's too damn expensive to get it. I don't think for long, though. And I don't think it's going to take some great battery breakthrough either. I'd say you need about 50 kWh in a sedan, minimum, for it to work well for trips (plus a bit of charging infrastructure). If you want to sell a car for $40,000 (which would be $33,000 after rebates, less in California), that means you probably can't have a pack that costs more than $20,000 (since you can buy a decent gas car for that, and that's before you remove all the gassy bits).<p>So, $20,000 for a 50 kWh pack == $400 per kWh, which is totally doable. I think when the Leaf first came out, the estimates were that it cost Nissan about $500 per kWh, but if they don't have it down below $400 by now I'll eat my hat. And Tesla probably already has the cost below $300, what with using commodity cells. I think they only reason Tesla doesn't put out a $40,000 sedan is because they know the demand would outstrip their battery supply by a factor of 200 (and murder demand for the Model S), so they have to wait until they build their own factory.<p>But! Nissan already has their own battery factory. Their batteries are not nearly as energy-dense as Teslas, so fitting 50 kWh worth in the Leaf may be their biggest issue right now. But there's a lot of wasted space in that car. I think they can do it just fine. And when they do, if gas has just tipped north of $4 by then, they are going to make a lot of noise.<p>They sent me a survey a couple months ago, and one of the questions asked how much extra I'd pay for EPA-rated 150 miles range (instead of the current 75). I was about to drag the little slider up to about $12,000, but it stopped at $5,000 (or $208 per kWh). That may just be a random question with no basis on their current engineering, but I think they're up to something.