Akkam’s Razor

I am plenty excited by the technology that General Motors seems to be promising with the Chevrolet Volt (info via AutoblogGreen).  The specifications are exactly what we need in a daily commuter  (plus the fact that it's easy on the eyes):

The Volt has a range of about 40 miles on the battery alone which might not seem like much. But, considering that most people drive fewer miles than that per day, it should mean that a lot of drivers will never use a drop of gas on their daily commute. However, when the fuel tank is filled to it's capacity of 12 US gallons of gas, the Volt has a range of 640 miles. In addition, the Volt ICE is fully flex fuel capable and can run on any combination of gasoline or ethanol up to E85. The power-train is sized to achieve 0-60 mph acceleration of about 8.5 seconds.

But as science fiction writes Robert Heinlein stated, "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch."

Contemplate the other factors - a plug-in hybrid consumes power.  Are residences set up to provide that kind of juice?  And nevermind households and workplaces, how about the national electrical grid?  If a treebranch can black out a significant part of the country, and if every summer brings rolling brownout to others, what will tens to hundreds of thousand of hybrids bring. 

Furthermore, how that energy is generated is still done the same way as in the last century - mainly by burning fossil fuel, further contributing to our energy crunch.  I suspect that very little is done via wind or water turbine, and there hasn't been a nuclear powerplant built since the 1970s (and I dread it being done in this President's Administration).  You can refer to the energy generation problem as remote emissions - the pollution, ground stripping, wars and regional strife over oil, acid rain, etc., will all still exist, they'll just happen somewhere else in the ecosystem.

The very last problem is that the plan is largely doable save the most important part - batteries capable of storing and delivering the charge.  Until that becomes reality, this technology is right there with flying cars and the water carbuerator.