Electric cars lose nearly 60 percent of their range in cold weather, AAA report finds

What's to keep them from installing an alternator(s) to charge the batteries on the move?
In a way you can use the motors as a generator. Regenerative braking will do the trick. It is common on electric trains where the motors will act as brakes and the resulting power generated is fed back into the electrical supply. Another system used by the Parry People Mover translates breaking power into a flywheel.
 

My point about income and taxes vs. savings is a restatement of the old adage, "A penny saved is a penny earned". I'm just pointing out that it is more like 1.10 to 1.25 pennies earned, before taxes, for middle class Americans who are likely representative of the marketplace of buyers for this class of automobiles.

I am aware of the conventional analysis of the Volt vs. the Cruise, and similar analyses. What they fail to consider is the accumulated value of paid-off (essentially free at the margin) solar energy, vs. long term fueling costs one conventionally pays. Paying nothing for fuel most of my daily driving adds up substantially over two decades. Conventional analyses tend to focus on breakeven within the life of the one car, whereas in my case the value continues to be obtained over the longer life of the solar array, from the perspective of the avoidance of fuel costs.

Solar power (in sunnier climes and where state laws and utilities' net metering credits allow) is a match made in heaven for e-vehicles, in creating end-user value and return. But even if you are paying for utility electricity, gas price inflation and price volatility effects are hard to ignore, and in my opinion, should not be ignored. It's much easier to plan and keep to a household budget (especially in retirement on a more limited or a fixed income) when you chose a fuel type that historically has dropped in price (in inflation adjusted terms) and which has lower price volatility, as has been the long history of U.S. utility electricity. See the chart here, covering a 36 year period of effective-per-mile utility electric vs. gasoline costs (it is displayed in inflation adjusted values):

http://theelectricgeneration.org/article/featured/summer-kickoff/

I think you may have missed where I said I am leasing, and did not buy the Volt. So, I am only paying for 36 months of depreciation on the car, not its full purchase price. Then I'll turn it in for something new, so I have no worries about long term reliability nor battery life.

Another idea I am capturing is to have selected a lease term exactly equal to the "bumper to bumper" three year warranty that comes with the car, eliminating maintenance and repair cost and risks (beyond simple wear and tear items). It's been my recent experiences with my old Mercedes that has put me into this mindset.

Admittedly this is an apples-to-oranges comparison: what I used to pay and now save on gas alone--not counting maintenance costs--to run my old MB, now offsets much of the lease payment for the Volt. It's like the Volt comes along for almost nothing.

Plus, it happened that when I bought the Volt, GM and Ally bank were offering aggressively low lease rates and high residual values, forcing down the lease payment. (They have since lowered the sticker pricing $5,000 instead, so what I got is now pretty much universally available to anyone.)

It's worth pointing out that Edmunds has stated that the average new car sales price in the U.S. last year was about $32,000; in other words, average buyers in America, by definition, can afford to choose electric or hybrid electric in their overall financial picture, this price being about what the electrics now cost after tax effects.

Are there cheaper cars? Sure. Could I have paid my trusted mechanic a few hundred bucks to find me a clean high mileage used car for $5,000-$10,000, against which the cost/benefit analysis would have been very different? Sure. There are other factors that become uniquely subjective to each individual's purchase decision and lifestyle expectations. In part I wanted my wife driving a new car unlikely to break down along the road some night. I am retired and wanted long term control over a key inflation factor and budgeting headache. But against the average buying habits of today's Americans, what the Edmund's data teaches is that they can now elect to save substantially on fuel costs at the average price consumers are actually paying to buy their cars today.

I respectfully have to disagree with your comments about performance and driveability, as the Volt has much more responsive low end torque especially from a standing start, with zero hesitancy, vs. my old MB CLK 430 AMG, which by comparison drove with a very heavy feel it to (because it is heavy), and ate $500 apiece performance tires about every 18 months. I won't go into the maintenance expense that car was setting me back every year, as that would be apples-to-oranges (it had 96,000 miles on it). I don't find the Volt to be a disappointment in any manner as far as its driving performance, but I have the testosterone level of a 58 year old, not a 28 year old.

As an engineer I admit to lacking passion and emotional responses to machinery, and to brand names, and I pick machines that do well what they are supposed to do. I am impressed with the design decisions that went into the Volt, and in its manufacturing quality. Given today's economy and the difficulty our Millennials are having finding employment, I also admit to wanting to buy American and support American jobs vs. buying a foreign-sourced vehicle, though the Cruise would do as well in that regard. Otherwise I am not brand conscious, and I respect that other viewpoints differ when it comes to gauging personal satisfaction in one's automobile. (If I let my emotions rule, I'd be tossing financial calculations out the window and getting a Telsa.) Hey, I admit it's just a Volt, but I have left my share of surprised BMW drivers in my taillights at those light-controlled freeway on ramps.

Finally, going beyond a simple cost benefit trade off analysis, I harbor concerns for the future I am leaving to my children and to theirs, and it is my opinion that today's generally accepted accounting rules allow far too many costs to be inappropriately externalized rather than paid for at the pump. Externalized over region and over generations, into the future. I'd rather try to do a little something to let my children know that I did what I could do at the time, thought about it, and that it has been my viewpoint that we are borrowing the planet from our children, rather than inheriting it from our parents.
 
I have nothing against electric cars per se. Much more complicated issue than it seems at first glance. For example where is the electricity coming from..coal-fired generators, nuclear? How are the batteries made, lead-acid or something more recyclable, environmentally friendly (lots of lead in landfills, not good), If the industry finds a 'good' way to produce the vehicle, is that also the least expensive option for the person that runs one, because if it isn't, why would you buy one unless you are rich enough to do it just for the environment.
 
Simple you cannot power a car with a battery and then use a generator that creates drag on the motor to charge the battery. You are essentially burning the produced power (and more) during the creation process. Nothing is being stored!

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Put it this way. The same amount of power being discharged from the battery is the same amount of power needed to charge the battery. So the amount of load your car needs to go, is the same amount of load the alternator would add to charge the battery. This is not even putting power efficiency loss in the equation.
 
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