And though petroleum clearly won out over electricity in the automobile’s first century, battery technology has finally advanced to such a degree for electric vehicles (EVs) to compete more closely with their petrol-powered counterparts.

Cars like the Nissan Leaf, Tesla Model S and BMW i3 have done much to validate EVs’ presence on the road. So why haven't electric cars overtaken the internal combustion engine? Indeed, zero-emission electric vehicles comprise less than 1% of the global new-car market.

To help answer this, BBC Autos trawled Quora.com, the question and answer community. Unsurprisingly, there were a few strong opinions on the subject, and sustained scepticism about EVs’ prospects of overtaking internal-combustion cars.

Building from the ground up

Quora user Robert Fisher writes that EVs are a promising option, but adds they can only gain traction if and when governments help fund the construction of recharging stations.

"Until this occurs, drivers that expect to drive long distances will not purchase purely electric vehicles,” he says. “This is the largest disincentive for electric vehicles since it limits the function and usefulness of the vehicle and may require the purchase of a traditional gas vehicle to compensate for the lack of capability."

Infrastructure-related gripes popped up more than a few times with Quora users. In a separate online thread, Moon K Kim said: "Although most people do not drive more than 40 miles per day, range anxiety plays an important role in EV purchasing decisions. PHEV (plug-in hybrid EV) can be a solution to range anxiety but only at an additional cost and complexity." Range anxiety has led many carmakers to forego, or only tentatively finance, EV development, instead funnelling resources into plug-in hybrids that combine electric- and petrol-based propulsion.

Tesla Motors has addressed this problem head-on with its so-called Supercharger network – available in both the US and Europe. But with the stations only accommodating Tesla vehicles, the concept hardly threatens the pervasiveness of gas stations.

Even if carmakers overcome the challenges of EV charging infrastructure, they must also tackle electric-vehicle pricing.

Sticker shock

Many electric vehicles are offered with generous federal and local subsidies, resulting in more competitive window stickers. Still, the prices may still outpace those of comparable petrol models, while the EVs themselves are loss leaders for carmakers – just ask Fiat's CEO. Fisher also notes that government subsidies are not permanent, and eventually, consumers may have to absorb that cost.

"In some countries [and] states, government incentives can make them more competitive, but that is just shifting the cost from the individual to the masses,” he writes. “These programs are not sustainable.”

Moon, however, takes the long view. "If one assumed that [the] conventional fuel price is bound to go up significantly in medium-to-long term, then economics for EVs will surely improve,” she writes. “Furthermore, battery cost (which makes up a big part of the overall cost of EV) continues to decline with scale and technological innovation."

For now, though, the up-front premium is real – as are some potentially unforeseen running costs. Quora user Kevin McCurley argued that at least for him, owning an EV would not add up. "The answer to this question depends on the conditions of the market in which you buy electricity – not whether it's cheaper for society or better for global warming or more efficient," he wrote.

McCurley calculated how much installing a charging system at home would cost, the price of using electricity to charge the vehicle – factoring in his employer's offer to charge the vehicle while at work for free – and still concluded that the EV he was considering would still be "very expensive for me to drive".

He cited a Purdue University paper from 2011, in which certain energy markets, such as California, were faulted for making EV charging expensive because of tiered pricing structures for high-usage households.

McCurley said the nuances of electricity markets makes it difficult for consumers to assess whether EVs were savvy purchases. "The characteristics of the electricity market are extremely constrained, whereas there is an active and relatively competitive market for gasoline. This makes it difficult for consumers to estimate their actual operation cost," he wrote.

Cost and infrastructure may inhibit EVs’ immediate success, but some carmakers are combatting these challenges. In addition to its proprietary charging network, Tesla has plans to build a massive battery plant in Nevada, which the company says is the ticket to lowering battery-pack development costs and ultimately, the cost of battery-electric cars. Tesla plans to bring an EV to market in coming years priced closer to a Nissan Leaf than the Model S's luxury-car peers, such as the Audi A8 and Mercedes-Benz S-Class.

And sales momentum seems to be building. The latest data published by IHS, an industry analysis group, shows that EV sales in the US have more than tripled since 2012, to 46,000 in 2013. (Granted, pent-up demand for the long-teased Model S gave the EV market a big goose in 2013.)

"Despite falling short of previous expectations, global sales of electric vehicles actually are progressing at a much faster pace than hybrid cars did during the same stage of their deployment, paving the way for higher demand as more EV options arrive on the market this year and beyond," IHS noted.

And so it is that, as they’ve done on and off for over a century, EVs continue chugging along, seemingly against all odds.

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