Keith, please don't stop. This is a fun and interesting conversation. I gotta state, again, that I'm not anti-EV. There's a whole bunch of stuff I like about them. Just trying to explain adoption or lack there of.
As have been stated in several posts here, you'll need to change the mindset of the average consumer to adopt an EV right now. Take the savings to rent a car for long trips, reroute trips a bit to find charging stations, add an expensive charger to your house, etc. It can be tried, but it's a huge uphill battle. When an EV can act like a car, people will buy them, plain and simple. My example of 10 gas stations around my house was more to outline the availability of gas vs. a charging station as opposed to it being near my house. Charging stations are coming, but they're still not as common as gas. Looking at the Tesla charging map, I count 7 in Kansas if you don't count KC. That's a lot of people without a charging station close. Keith, you mentioned being able to drive to Vegas and have a charging station along the same stops as fuel. That's awesome and for you, an EV makes sense. For a large part of the country, that's not possible. When someone like Ford and/or Exxon decide to invest up front and get the infrastructure in place first, EV adoption will increase.
Again, some EV's, in theory, would satisfy my day to day needs for my commute. But, they're more expensive to purchase, I'd have to pay for a 220v charger installed in the house and I'd have to plan for alternative transportation if I go beyond it's range. Plus, there are easy examples of range (a vacation) that can be overcome by renting, but there are others that you don't plan for, because stuff happens, where you could expend that range and be stuck. I live in Texas. We grew out instead of up. A commute back and forth to work, a run to the mall, or a doctor's appointment on the other side of town in the middle of the day could leave me stranded. Or, a commute to work, a trip back to my kids school because he forgot his meds and then a trip back to work and eventually a trip home for the day would have me out of juice. No charging stations anywhere in that route.
Given all of that, there's not a compelling argument for purchasing one over an ICE car. Hybrids have come far enough (and cheap enough in comparison) to make it a compelling option and one I'm considering. It's one more people are moving towards as hybrids become more mainstreams. So, it's not the "fringe" scenarios or the "I need a one ton truck because sometimes I buy fertilizer at the store", it's the cost and other things that I have to do for an EV that I can just as easily do with gas while still with the real risk of being stranded.
-Rob