there is most certainly a very large part of the "market" that can be well served by an EV.
this is particularly true in Europe where 'daily' travel of 30-50 miles is essentially an 'unthinkable' situation.
when we were living in Germany and Monday when asked how 'was the weekend' and I replied 'oh, we went skiing in Switzerland' - people looked at me like I had three heads. that kind of weekend 'travel' was well outside of the norm...
for an American with a VW bus and an Autobahn, nada problem...
here's an question:
(1) back before cars went all aerodynamic..... it took roughly 5 hp to maintain 70 mph on (non-alpine) terrain. cars have become seriously more aerodynamic since then....
(2) Detroit loudly railed about 'mpg targets' because cars needed big engines to accommodate the stop/start/acceleration "needs" of the average driver - and internal combustion engines of a size that met those needs were inherently inefficient because the design need to provide little to extreme amounts of power from low to high rpm.
so . . . why not put more emphasis on the hybrid designs? charge at home, plus a small, constant rpm, low horsepower, high efficiency gas/diesel to charge the batteries/provide long distance road range.
provides super long range with the speed of a gas fill up . . .
for local use, goes the range in total EV mode - longer range available 'on demand'
EV as 'a second local use vehicle' is entirely workable, except for the budget bit...
not a lot of households can afford that price tag for second car.
and note: the "cheap operating costs" of EV will change - some method of extracting much money from EV owners not paying state gas taxes will happen.
an EV as primary vehicle plus gas rental for long(er) trips is also thinkable . . .
but rental companies are stocking up on EVs. oops.
in grade school my father and I built an lead acid battery powered wheel chair for a disabled youngster. worked, very limited - 'electronics' of the day were transistor radios. achieving 'energy efficiency' was severely limited when burning off battery power into heat using a rheostat to control speed.
in high school I/we 'converted' a junked Falcon to an electric car - again with the lead acid batteries . . . worked, but what a zoo.
UPS (UK) is doing a trial with mini-delivery vans in urban settings. supposed to have a 40 mile range. well, 40 miles on flat open at steady speed is not the same as 40 miles starting/stopping every +/- hundred feet; so a lot depends on how honest they were in the 'testing'