Jeff,

I have often looked at electric for both cars and boats and the big problem is always batteries. The simple fact is that lead-acid cells are just too heavy to propel a vehicle for any distance. The golf-cart batteries are the best cost per unit capacity but just not good enough, except of course for golf carts.

The high-tech batteries needed have been just too small and too expensive to consider. Companies like Tesla have a workable technical solution - thousands of small, expensive batteries - but at a cost equal to the fanciest Mercedes S-class, for a crappy little roadster.

Now GM is sort-of making a sort-of electric car, and the Nissan Leaf looks to be an actual practical second car. Perhaps these large markets will make Lithium-ion-positronic-xray-whatever batteries cheap enough for us. A guy living on a 30-mile-long lake can reasonably consider electric power....