Nice dream but I think that it will take a long time for the general public to pick up on electric cars. In Europe, where fuel costs are higher, they seem to be taking hold of electric cars more than we are. They also have less of the 'but I want to go 800 miles to a charge and only stop for 5 minutes' thoughts too. In Europe, Japan, and the UK you can get on a train and go somewhere. Here we have the expense of a plane, which cannot effectively be flown electrically, and we don't have trains covering our country in a way effective for decent time and cost efficient travel. With that being said, I'm still going to be driving an electric car, hopefully sometime next year.
Right now people who like the idea are waiting until they perceive that the bugs have been worked out. With hybrids this took almost a decade to happen. Not many people bought the 1st Gen Insight, the Prius, or the first Honda Civic or Accord hybrid. After the 2nd Gen Prius came out, it got noticed and now I see tons of the newest Prius on the road.
I think it will take about a decade before people who think they would be workable for them decide to 'flood the dealerships' to get one. To most people there are too many unknowns and gas prices and high initial cost of electric cars are a large part of it, each will turn their own favor.
There will be people buying gasoline on a gas price balance and utility need. There will always be people needing to drive long distances like sales drivers, mobile technicians, and cross country drivers. I've been all three of these and have commonly driven 150-200 miles in a day, lots of daily time in a car. Taxis, delivery, and couriers drive well over that. Oddly enough, the people who need to drive the farthest are at the biggest disadvantage, while the person who has a 120 mile range car with an 80 mile round trip commute is at the best advantage to owning an electric car based on the cost of driving.
We won't get free cars but there will probably be enough gas guzzlers on the road to where they are almost free. Remember the SUV and truck glut of summer 2008? I could have sold my rusty 1995 Geo Prizm for twice what I paid for it in 2006 at that time but I would have had to own some other form of transport too and buying a more efficient car would have had more margin. ...so in a way your dream may come true, but it will be in the used car market with car dealers having trouble getting rid of the guzzler glut.
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