My understanding is that a lingering problem with electric cars is that they use lithium ion battery packs, and those battery packs are really nothing more than 300 or so laptop li-ion batteries. So, you pay $40,000 to buy the car new, but the li-ion batteries don't last any longer than they would in a laptop computer. So, a few years down the road you're looking at buying a new battery pack for the car, or 300 battery packs at $50 per battery pack, or $15,000.

It's that problem with the battery packs for the cars only lasting a few years that still needs to be solved. I, for one, wouldn't want to drive an electric car if I had to pay two or three times as much more for batteries than I would have to pay for gasoline in a conventional car.

Does anyone know if this is correct or am I misinformed?