http://gas2.org/2009/10/30/mini-e-hits-p...

"One major obstacle on the road to widespread acceptance of electric cars is reliability. Electric cars are still relatively new ground, and anybody who has ever gotten a cellphone wet or left a laptop in a car during a hot summer day (guilty on both counts) knows that electronics are very sensitive to the elements. Apparently, they are also sensitive to potholes.

One of the “lucky” few who were given an Electric Mini to test out—the founder of GM-Volt.com found out just how sensitive when the Mini came to a dead stop in a construction zone after hitting one such pothole."

Yes, I can hear all the "it's just a prototype" responses already. Unfortunately, it's also one of a very few EVs out there that we hear about. You can bet that most of the test cars' performance is confidential.

As the article points out, these cars are much more sensitive to the elements and it's largely new technology so these hiccups are expected. The question is what happens when one or two or a dozen cars has real problems - like a battery catching fire, or a car stopping dead at high speed? Will consumers say "That was XYZ electric car, I have an ABC model, so I'm not worried"? Or "I'm going to pay twice what I would have paid for a hybrid for a small car that needs to be plugged in and now I have to worry about this too"?

Sorry, the "ready for mass market" sticker is years away, if at all, IMHO.