Re: I dont get it.
Some real world stats from 5 weeks of driving an all electric Nissan Leaf in Houston during September:
Battery can hold 24 kilowatt/hours of potential energy. Motor peak output is 80 kW/hr (107 hp). Overall curb (kerb?) weight is 3,200 pounds.
Houston Texas is mostly flat, most "hills" are the Interstate overpasses. Averaging 4.5 miles per kW./hr, at rate of $0.104 equates to about $0.024 per mile, gasoline would be between 5 to 7 times higher. Leasing for 3 years to mitigate risk of battery problems. My shortest round trip commute is 30 miles, I trickle charge overnight. Max range for me is around 95 miles, but I never intend to go below 20% on battery. Limited to Houston area, cannot drive the 180 miles to Austin, so wife's VW Tiguan is my range extender.
I'm not a tree hugging environmentalist, I work with engineers who design systems to extract oil & gas from Gulf of Mexico. But I am very, very tired of multi hundred dollar repairs for failing O2 sensors, timing chains, fuel injector fouling, etc.
Downside of electric cars is the low energy density of the battery. A US gallon of gasoline equates to 37 kW/hr and weighs 8 lbs. My battery weighs about 600 lbs. Do the math, lithium ion batteries have very low energy density. Everything will get better over time, but limit is an atom can give off only 1 or 2 electrons, whereas a molecule of fuel, combined with ambient O2 releases far more energy.
Optimal where daily usage is less than half of max range. Not for everyone, and pretty expensive. But quiet, vibration free, and good low end torque. Every Leaf driver would love to be a Tesla driver.
Apologies for my use of non-Imperial, non-metric units of measures, cousins.