Electric cars not measuring up.

Which isn't really surprising.  They cost more to maintain, they have limited range, and when gas gets cheaper, like it is now, their fuel advantage lessens significantly.

Investors Business Daily has a good analysis, which shows that the plan for electric cars was by and large a political thing from the very beginning.  When the market doesn't make the decision, waste and foolishness normally follow, and here it's the loss of 8 billion in taxpayer money.

From the article:

Back in the good old days when President Obama didn't have so many dings on his record, he promised that by 2015 there'd be more than 1 million electric cars on the road.

Well, with just days to go, he's only about 826,000 or so cars short of that goal.

Instead of 200,000 Nissan Leafs on the road today -- as Obama's Department of Energy predicted in 2011 -- there are less than 70,000.

And while Obama forecast 375,000 Chevy Volt sales by 2014, just a bit more than 71,000 have made it off the showroom floor.

Fisker, which was supposed to be selling 85,000 electric cars a year by now, went bankrupt last year.

Add it up, and there are a grand total of less than 180,000 plug-ins on U.S. roads today. Worldwide, there are only 400,000.

It's true that Tesla has been something of a hit, at least among the richest of the rich. But even Tesla is having trouble getting its more modestly priced Model X crossover into production.

And so, after shoveling $8 billion in taxpayer money into electric cars, Obama quietly ended up ditching his 1 million goal late last year.

The electric car picture isn't likely to get much better in the years ahead, no matter how much money the government throws at this technology.

As Mark Mills carefully and devastatingly explains in an article on Real Clear Politics, electric cars face one impenetrable obstacle in replacing gas-powered cars -- it's called physics.

"Pound for pound (and pounds matter) the chemicals that comprise gasoline store 40 times more energy than the best chemicals in batteries," he writes. "Gasoline is not only more dense but also remarkably safe, easy to store, and portable."

He goes on: "The underlying difference in energy density — hydrocarbons vs. electrochemistry — is locked in the physics of the associated atoms and molecules. No venture capital, government subsidy, or computer magic can change that," he writes.

Just for kicks, the family and I scheduled a test drive of a Tesla.   It was fun, the car was nice (the sedan is what we drove) and acceleration was great.   However, it had limited range, and what that range was changed depending on the weather and how you drove the car, and it was crushingly expensive.  The one we drove, which really wasn't all that loaded with options, was well over 100k in costs.  Further, although there were about 7500 dollars in subsidies, you couldn't get them until you filed your taxes, meaning that you needed to come up with the full price up front. 

In reality, the Tesla was a good, solid Buick of a car, that carried a giant price tag and some cachet with the in crowed for being an electric.  That car will be nothing but a toy for the wealthy until it comes down in price by about 75 or 80%.