I have met Elon Musk. Nice and really bright guy, but very focused on what he is attempting. I wish him all the success in the world.
I do not know that BEV can be done from a standing start. The first issue is that there are only 35 million tons of proven reserves for lithium. Of that reserve, 25 million tons of it are in either China or Russia. Can you say LiPEC?
Ignoring political issues, that is only enough lithium to build 875,000,000 BEV passenger cars and light trucks. If done as PHEV's, you get about 6 times as many vehicles. On the other hand, even using LIPO's would give us several decades to find replacements. BEV's would also require a fairly substantial infrastructure. To recharge it in 10 to 15 minutes requires a power outlet that can handle 432kwh. At best, using my old electric stove outlet, I get 11kwh in my home.
The other side of the problem is that it takes about 2 years to build a battery factory in China. Their quality control, well, frankly sucks is just too kind a word. Tesla right now has to test each individual battery cell, then hand solder the cells to make up the packs. That is a large part of the cost for their cars ATM.
We also have to build some combination of electrical generation and infrastructure to handle BEV's. PHEV's will cause some headaches, but no where near as much as at 11kwh, my home can charge two PHEV's in an hour. During off peak hours.
Hybrid Technology has quite abit of room for improvement:
Version 1.0 = 1 kwh or less battery pack = 40/44 mpg (highway/city), Honda Civic
1.1 = Version 1.0 plus if you keep the vehicle at a complete stop for 3 seconds, the gasoline engine turns off = 45/48 mpg, Toyota Prius (I regularly get 51 mpg on the highway in hilly California).
2.0 = PHEV, commonly touted figure is for 40 mile range all electric, which means about 72% of us use little or no gasoline.
3.0 = High Compression gasoline engine, another 15% or so increase in mileage, Honda Civic now gets 46/50.6 mpg in HEV mode.
4.0 = Free Piston Engine, hard to judge exactly what kind of mileage this would get. Instead of a shafted ICE engine, you have a single magnetized piston slapping back and forth in a double cylinder wrapped in a conductor. Just the act of dropping the standard transmission and going to an electric drive train gives about a 40% improvement in mileage. If the free piston, by dropping the shaft in the engine gives a similar boost, then we are talking about mpg in the range of 60 to 70 mpg.
As for anemic power, the addition of ultra capacitors largely removes that problem by providing a large boost to power. Electrical drive trains CAN deliver power - the Tesla Roadster can do 0 to 60 in under 4.0 seconds. That doesn't sound too anemic to me.
A BEV may ultimately be where we want to head, but I suspect that may take a couple of decades to get to. In the meantime, PHEV's can lead the way to get there, IMHO.
Every problem has its solution, and every solution has its problems....