> Even plug in hybrids spend most of their lives burning gas.
They don't. PHEV's spend 50%-80% of their time on electric only, if you use them properly. (Just plug them in once each evening).
> The Solterra (snip) is a very mediocre EV, far behind its competition in efficiency and charging.
The Solterra is roughly competitive with a Tesla Model 3 (Standard Range) or a Chevy Bolt. Which is fine, they're all reasonable EVs, but I'd still call all of these "first generation consumer EVs".
We're at the "everyone has a BlackBerry, the iPhone hasn't been released yet" stage of automotive EVs, in my humble opinion.