It does, it's just centralised and called a power station... it's incredibly naive to think a Telsa isn't contributing to burning fossil fuels - it's just not in front of your face.
Also I am not sure whether any modern power grid in the world could cope if even 10% of cars became PHEV, imagine the spike when everyone got home and plugged in their car - would be like a "TV Pickup[0]" on steriods, they usually cover these with short term solutions such as hydro pump but this wouldn't run the time it takes to charge a car.
ps: the tv pickup thing is funny.
Also keep in mind that Tesla plans to develop a battery-based energy storage business.
What if your area is predominantly nuclear or hydroelectric?
http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musks-ted-talk-on-tesla-...
> First of all, he said, burning fossil fuels in a plant to generate electricity is more efficient that burning them in a combustion engine in a car. Because it is large and stationary, the plant can use the fuel much more efficiently:
> In a stationary power plant, you can afford to have something that weighs a lot more, is voluminous, and you can take the waste heat and run a steam turbine and generate a secondary power source...
> Even using the same source fuel, you're at least twice as better off.
> Part two of Musk's argument is not based on numbers, but on the fact that electricity can be produced from renewable sources, most notably solar power:
> We have to have sustainable means of power generation anyway, electricity generation. So given that we have to solve sustainable electricity generation, then it makes sense for us to have electric cars as the mode of transport.
That also entirely ignores the range problems. Even with charging stations every few towns, you'll still have to stop for 30 minutes to "supercharge." That is as opposed to 5 minutes for petrol or diesel.
[1] This has caused one co-worker to declare that he is never taking a road trip with me.
the range issue is essentially a different problem with electric cars, as you charge when you're parked. Charging can be done anywhere the electric grid is present, it's just a matter of access being established appropriately.
It's great that electric cars exist now (and maybe someday in the future I'd even be interesting in buying one once there existed infrastructure that made it feasible), but I think your timeline for the obsolescence of internal combustion engines is laughable.