The way to solve the recharge time issue is to make the batteries easily swappable like they are in my flashlight. Pull into a "filling station" and a robot drops the old batteries and replaces them with fully charged batteries in 5 minutes or so. Then there is no range or charge time anxiety.

What did in nuclear power far more than TMI and anti-nuclear sentiments is the cost. It was cheaper and faster to build coal fired power plants with a more immediate and better ROI. If nuclear power were the inexpensive alternative you can bet that more of them would have been built. As it is now with the Vogtle plants being built it's difficult to get financing without government loan guarantees.

Probably 2 electric motors is enough, one for the front axle and one for the rear axle. You don't really want to put the motors out on the wheels because the weight of them interferes with the suspension's action and makes it less reactive to bumps in the road.

Considering that Members of Congress and their staff are already required to get their health care insurance through the exchanges I doubt it would really make any impression on SCOTUS at all.

The fault of Republicans would have been to cause 6 million+ people losing the subsidized health insurance coverage that they currently have.

Even if Kagan recused herself the vote would have still been 5-3.

Only if you drive like a maniac and have to hit the brakes so hard the regenerative braking never has a chance to work.

LOL, I just pulled those numbers out of my butt. I think my first drive was actually a 20 MB drive but at 63 years old my memory is not as good as it used to be ;)

Don't you think developments like in the story means replacement batteries become cheaper over time?

If there is demand it will drive an increase in supply. Rare earth minerals are not really all that rare, just not as well concentrated as some more common minerals. I don't see any of your cavils as show stoppers.

Brake maintenance is reduced (but not totally eliminated) for electric cars that use regenerative braking.

It's true you can buy a similar sized gas car for far less than the Leaf but then the ongoing cost of ownership is much less so it probably works out to a similar lifetime cost for the two.

You don't think a Nissan Leaf for $30K is affordable? Maybe not for everyone but it is for a lot of people.

Yeah, it's like I paid $1000 for my first hard drive and it only held 100 MB so today's 2 TB drives for $100 are impossible.

If this pans out it probably means the end to the claims that solar PV and wind power can't affordably supply us with all of our electricity needs. It also makes electric cars all that much more affordable. Elon Musk may need to redesign his battery factory.