Two overwhelming problems with an electric are range and price. Range limitations have you spending most of your time looking at your state of charge and mentally calculating whether you can get home or not. Fine, if there were quick chargers on every street corner like gas stations, but they're not. As your battery pack ages, it will store less energy, meaning that 90-mile range could become 60 in a couple of years.
That leads to the second problem - that battery pack is going to be
expensive. Whether it's by gradual loss of capacity, or sudden failure, you are going to be out of pocket some big bucks at some undetermined point in the future. Renault has a pretty nifty solution for that, introduced in their
Twizy. You buy the car (about $12K), but
lease the battery pack monthly. That way, if your battery goes flat, the company comes out and changes it at no charge (well, hopefully the
battery's charged). Free road service, free boosts, even free towing is part of the deal. While the Twizy isn't my idea of a proper car (it's strictly an urban electric), that battery lease is a great idea that would cover many of my concerns with an electric vehicle.
But for most EVs, there's that fixed cost of the battery on the initial purchase . . . but that's not the only problem; weight is a big design problem. A battery that will give 100 mile range is going to be heavy. Li-Ions are lighter, but more expensive, so you choose your poison. Added weight in the battery compartment translates to a heavier frame, bigger motor, beefed-up suspension components, bigger brakes . . . and the list goes on. Pretty soon you've arrived at a Tesla - big bucks, but still not a vehicle you can take cross-country. That's a severe limitation for a car that costs me $75K+ just to put on the road.
Elio has an elegant solution: light weight, gasoline engine, efficient aero, and a friendly price. Nuff said.