A friend of mine has an electric bike for his personal transport .It gets along pretty well (around 40-50 km/h) which is much quicker than the average speed of cars or buses in peak hour and he doesnt get stuck in peak hour and can use bike paths.he tells me with the two light weight batteries he has the whole lot cost him $1500 and have a range of 60 km ) and virtually nothing to run .He says that he hires a car (whatever he needs small ,4 x 4) when he needs a car to go on a longer out of town trip or needs to cart family memebers around .They have a massive solar system that cost a similar amount to a good second hand car (but without the running expeses) that essentially pays for a hire car whenever they need it .It all seems to make sense .So why are electric cars so expensive ?