This is reposted from OKGG. It's a bit hard to read, but well worth it to wade through the lack of paragraphs.
In short, the EV1 was recalled by GM because Texaco wanted the NiMH batteries back and off the market, they owned the patents. Shortly after, Chevron bought Texaco and squashed licensing of large scale NiMH technology thus making us unable to move electric cars forward until the patent expires in 2015!
We live in such a fucked up world...
Here it is for simplicity....
"33. RE: MythBuster: Why Electric Vehicles Beat Gas in 5 Extreme Tests
Website: http://www.nerys.com/
There is no real downside to electric cars. Jamie your 300 mile range car would cost HALF that much if they did not BAN the batteries you really need (Lith is not that good IE epensive and short lived) E95 NIMH ie Large Format nimhs are the ticket. They had 100+ mile range electric cars over a decade ago. GM killed them sold the patent to texaco a week later chevron bought texaco and crushed the patent by the simple act of refusing the license it. Its a controlling patent hence why everyone is TRYING to make lithium work. There not legally allowed to touch NIMH. 10 years ago the battery only cost $4500 and that was in the SMALL prototype quantities they made. If they were mass produced they would be under $2k. so $6k in batteries would net you your 300mile range. $1000 for a decent but dead 4 door sedan. $2k for a motor $2k for the controller $k for the charger. Then your week of labor. Do the math. The problem is the batteries but thats a patent legal issue NOT a technological issue. Some of those E95's tht survived in the RAV 4 EV's are still going today. 150,000 miles with almost NO degredation in battery life yet! (they are projected to be good for over 250,000 miles!!!) Durability is irrelevant. They will be lighter stronger rust proof corrosian resistant virtually maintenance free and virtually ever lasting (there is just not much to "break" in an electric car) the only moving part of the drive train is the electric motor!! It would NOT be hard for an automaker to mass produce a 100 mile range EV for under $10k and still make a decent profit. THIS is what scares them. I don't want to buy a second car. WELL I DO. I spend over $4000 a year in gasoline! if I had an electric car that could JUST do 75 miles on a charge I would never have to use gas again for my 53mile each way commute to work (I could plug in at work). I would instantly save $3500 a year in gasoline the car would be FREE inside of 3 years. Consider Nano Solar is working on solar panels for sale at 90cents a watt. That means a $1000 solar array on your house roof and a $1600 grid tie in within your garage and you SELL that E back to the grid. Now your selling MORE E back to the grid than the typical american's electric car would consume on the charger. NOW the car is 100% free to drive and 00% pollution free and 100% ZERO load on the grid! "expensive" maintenance virtually vanishes. They would be made of aluminum and plastic. No more rust. Everything but the Motor is solid state. No more expensive repairs. anything else that needs to be fixed is much cheaper (tires bearings brakes etc..) and can easily be done DIY. An electric car powered by NIMH cells would cost bout $1 in electricity to drive 100miles. Thats $1 for my round trip to work. Right now at 25mpg I pay $16 for that round trip. The GRID would not be hurt if we went ENMASS to electric cars. Most people do not realize that its not fairy dust that gets that gasoline into the car (having fun no insults intended) it takes ELECTRICITY and a lot of it to get that gasoline from the refineries to your gas tank. Avg mpg in the US is 20mpg thats 5 gallons of gasoline. How much you want to bet it takes more than $1 in electricity to get 5 gallons of gasoline into your cars tank start to finish.? How much you want to get it would take more than $1 in E eve if you got 35mpg (thats 3 gallons) ? I would bet a weeks pay on it. Hell a months. I have no idea how to figure it out but I see how much power the stations consume the signs consume the advertising consumes the gas the TRUCKS consume to BRING the fuel TO the stations etc.. etc.. etc.. I would be a years wages that if we STOPPED using gasoling overnight (and all the power associated with gasoline) and switched to electric cars 100% power usage would actually DECLINE and NOT go up. There is NO downside to electric cars. Faster better cleaner cheaper loner lasting safer etc.. etc. Noise? your kidding right? NOISE? a kid gets smacked by an electric car and instead of the LOGICAL answer the driver screwed up or the kid screwed up and was not paying attention you assume it was because he could not hear the car? DO his eyes not work? he could not see the 2000 pound 12+ foot long 6+ foot wide hunk of metal coming toward him? Parking lots must be a dangerous place for him. Seriously. Looks both ways is a catch phrase for a reason. Half the modern higher end cars on the road today are virtually SILENT even when your standing directly in front of them. There is a few times where I have had to put my hand on the hood of my dad's town car to VERIFY it was in fact running. If I can not hear it standing in front of the grill in my own driveway in my QUITE neighborhood no way is a playing kid EVER going to hear that car. Ever. The only downside to an electric car is if your in the top 2% and profit from oil and its associated fields or your an automaker. You would be surprised how much of auto maker profits come from AFTER the sale of the car. JUST THE FINANCE charges can equal a greater profit for an auto maker than the ENTIRE PURCHASE PRICE OF YOUR CAR! (go do the math) Electric cars being cheaper means FAR less profit from finance charges and virtually NO profit from wear and tear maintenance and repairs etc.. (they just do not break down) Most of the flaws you will find in an electric car have nothing to do with eletric power and EVERYTHING to do with politics and legalities. Leads SUCK. that kids car sucked NOT because it was electric but because he was forced to use lead acid batteries (lower power heavy and short lived) because they are cheap enough Lithium is too expensive and NIMH what he NEEDED are illegal because chevron refuses to license it. Lithium takes 2.5 times more power to charge than nimh if you want to charge them fast (lots of power wasted in heat cooling mnging etc..) The tesla roadster was forced to use 6,831 lithium cells. And people wonder why it costs $100 grand and costs $2.50 per 100 miles (the wasted energy) but still far far cheaper than gas. Alas its irrelevant since 99% of us are never going to own a $100 thousand dollar car and if we could we would not be worried about gas prices. The only people who can NOT afford electric cars are the VERY PEOPLE who NEED electric cars. Go Figure. All I know is come 2015 when that fraking patent expires the first vehicle I am converting to electric is my 1992 Ford E150 Club Wagon Then my Cherokee gets juiced I find it FASCINATING tht the new chevy volt is limited to 40 miles on E power and it JUST so happens the "AVERAGE" range of a home built EV conversion is around 40 miles. I DO NOT believe in coincidences."