Reply #8: Not very expensive at all.

[TheWraith]

Taking the Tesla Roadster as an example (because that's the one I know figures for) it takes about 133 watt-hours to move the car 1 mile. Where I live, electricity is $0.12 per kilowatt-hour. Now, that means that to drive 23 miles, it would cost you 40 cents with an electric car, compared to around $3 with a gas powered car. For the cost of 1 gallon of gas, you could drive 187 miles on an electric car.

As to the power plants, if you have any substantial greenhouse-neutral power--hydro, nuclear, wind--then that's already "clean." Yes, fossil fuel-based power production would reduce this, but larger conversion plants typically mean greater efficiency, and an electric car only uses 10% of the energy that a chemically-fuelled car does, because gasolene engines are inefficient. Larger plants mean greater efficiency, so even where the grid is still being driven by fossil fuels (mostly coal, not oil/gas) it's still better than your average car.