So how about you RENT A CAR once a year, for your 8000 mile trip across multiple state lines. Your daily commute is how far?
Now instead, I buy a Tesla Model S. It costs $100k, but electricity is free at their chargers. Now I want to make my cross country journey, so I rent a minivan at 8000 miles, I'll be gone a week to fully enjoy the resort with the wife and kids. A minivan from Enterprise is $110/day plus gas. Looking at the fuel economy of a minivan [2], looks like I can expect 20mpg. I might get more, but that's what I'll budget for. Same as my Toyota truck, I'm spending $1400 in gas once per year, plus the $770 to rent the van for a week. Which means, in total, I'm spending $100k the first year, and $2170 every year after that. So unless you can spot an error in my math, in terms of fuel cost per year the poster boy electric car only saves me ~$700/yr.
Here's the results:
Toyota truck: $19,000 over 5 years.
Electric car plus a rental one week: $108,680 over 5 years.
Maybe you want to be more reasonable and go for the base Model S: $66,080 over 5 years.
Which one makes more economic sense?
[1] http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Traffic/story?id=485098&...
[2] http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/byclass/minivan2012.shtml
By your logic, everyone who buys a BMW M3 or a Porsche Boxster ... or whatever ... is dumb because they should have bought a Toyota truck because it is only $19,000 over 5 years.
Except, if I did that, it might even be worse. See, I picked the Tesla Model S for a few reasons. One being that it's the subject of the debate here on HN, and second is because the Leaf gets 100 miles in range. The Model S gets 250. The Model S is also capable of being mostly recharged in 30 minutes (for free), and while the Leaf can also be recharged in 30 minutes at one of Nissan's charging points, they are not free. You would end up paying a fuel cost for a Leaf, no matter how marginal.
I was using a Toyota truck as an example, but also noted that the rented minivan in the example cost just as much in gas. Minivans secondhand are also generally cheaper than trucks in my experience. The difference between a Model S and a Porsche is simple in my opinion: if you don't like the Porsche, the BMW is a comparable option. The Ferrari is nice at that price point as well. But you can't swap out the Model S with a comparable option. Like I noted in the first and second paragraph, the cheap competition isn't much cheaper at all, and in all honesty is a much worse value for the money.
If you're buying an electric car, it doesn't make sense to not go with the Model S. And if you can't swing the extra $30,000 for the Model S, just realize that the Leaf is ($35,000 + $100/yr in electricity + $1400/yr to rent a car) $42,500 for 5 years compared to $66,000 for the base Model S compared to $19,000 for the gas-guzzling 4x4. The cheap mainstream competition still doesn't beat a 5,000lb, 14 year old truck with a V6 engine. How many years would it take to break even on that investment? Trading in your old car for a new electric car isn't going to save you money. It just isn't. Especially if you're renting another car as well.
I certainly wouldn't make that argument for cars of today. But I see how rapidly the price is coming down, and I see what price targets Tesla is aiming for, and that is pretty interesting.
(And if you really want to compare price, it's probably a good idea to try to account for externalities. It's hard to estimate those for gas cars because so much is kept secret, but they are substantial.)
Here's a great spreadsheet to get the real costs: http://www1.extension.umn.edu/environment/energy/vehicle/
But my point simply was that purely electric technologies cannot satisfy all needs (yet?) and that the range capabilities of electric vehicles is not on part with fossil-fuel vehicles (which is what was seemingly claimed by the parent post). And yes, this might mean that fossil-fuel vehicles don't disappear entirely, but simply play a smaller role in our future society.