Range is increasing steadily, as companies figure out how to cram more lithium into the battery. Teslas can manage a healthy 200 miles per charge. City cars lik

Range is increasing steadily, as companies figure out how to cram more lithium into the battery. Teslas can manage a healthy 200 miles per charge. City cars like the Nissan Leaf can stretch 155 miles. Recharge times are actually restricted more by how much power you can pull from the grid at once - lithium batteries allow many kilowatts at a time to be pumped into them, provided they're cooled correctly, but this puts an obvious strain on the local grid. In theory, having a large feed direct from a power station at a petrol station would allow you to charge an electric car in a comparable time to tanking up with petrol. Battery swap is indeed an issue, but (again, in theory) batteries can be recycled, so the owner could sell the expired pack to a recycler to reclaim the lithium. Most current cars have the battery underneath the chassis, and there are demos of dropping a Tesla's pack in 90 seconds. Some proposals have been made for mechanically switching the pack at a charging station with a full one, then the pack is recharged separately for someone else to use. This fits nicely with the leasing model, but obviously needs a lot of investment. Leasing is also a good option because replacing the battery at the end of its life is then the duty of the manufacturer, although lithium batteries are pretty good even at five years old - I can get many years of life out of a good-quality laptop battery, so I wouldn't hesitate with an electric car.