When I'm driving 600 miles, I usually stop for lunch. In the UK, all you would need to immediately make most long distance journeys viable is charging bays at

When I'm driving 600 miles, I usually stop for lunch. In the UK, all you would need to immediately make most long distance journeys viable is charging bays at about 5 or 6 existing strategically chosen service stations on trunk routes[1]. Remember, you can recharge fully in less than an hour. Supplying power to charging points is not going to be a big deal. 85kWh battery charging in 1 hour will draw 1.4kW, less than half the maximum for a standard UK domestic plug, in fact less than a plug-in electric heater[2]. So I can also fully recharge in an hour at anyones house, just by running an extension lead out the window at a push. And, it's only going to cost me in the order of £10 to recharge at day rate electricity prices (about £5 on night rate). My current car does about 650 miles on a full tank of diesel driving at 70mph but this costs about £80 and it's much less efficient for city driving due to engine idling and no regenerative braking. OK so the tesla costs about £46k($70k) and I can't afford that, but that's around what you'd pay for mid to high range BMW estate car. There are enough of these around to make me think there is a seriously large market for this car in Europe, easily enough to jump start the economies of scale in manufacturing needed to drive down the price for lower end models. [1] Say, M6 Cumbria, M1 Warwickshire, A1 Northumbria, M90 Perthshire, M5 Somerset, M20 Kent [2] e.g. http://www.johnlewis.com/230843376/Product.aspx http://www.johnlewis.com/230843376/Product.aspx