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The hideous weight of the batteries, the limited range, the lack of infrastructure - I know this will begin to change, but just imagine an i3 with a 1.0-litre, 150hp motor that weighed 750kg and would do 100mpg. With a range of 600 miles. Now that would be something special.
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I've heard harris make this argument in just about every review of an EV that he's done. He's right. I get it, the car would be better
right now if it had a featherweight petrol powered drive train, but that's missing the point of the entire i program.
In the middle of the 20th century, most locomotives were steam powered. Then, along came diesel. Diesel locomotives didn't immediately outperform their steam powered cousins either, but some railroads were forward thinking and invested in diesel technology. Diesel quickly advanced to outperform steam, and railroad operators who didn't invest early found themselves scrambling to adapt.
Obviously there are huge differences between the transition from steam to diesel and petrol to battery-electric, but we are in the very early days of this transition. Someone has to build and sell the first electric vehicles, even if they aren't wholly better than their petrol and diesel counterparts.
It's like Walter Gretzky said, "Skate where the puck's going, not where it's been."