I'd love to find a good number on the daily mileage of the median passenger car in the US. The average looks to be around 30-35mi/day but the median is probably a small fraction of that. Why would you want your battery pack to be 10x oversized for your typical day?
I think a more efficient solution would be series-hybrids with small onboard generators for range extension. Minimize weight/cost of the battery pack while maintaining the ability to drive cross-country without frequent charging stops.
PHEVs are certainly more complex, but a series hybrid like the BMW i3 only involves finding space for a small genset and some additional control software/electronics. I'm having trouble finding good numbers but this[0] article says the option added only ~$4k to the price.
One of the economies of battery scale is durability, no? What you gain in cost savings up front you lose by needing to replace the batteries more frequently than N times the larger battery pack size.
I think a more efficient solution would be series-hybrids with small onboard generators for range extension. Minimize weight/cost of the battery pack while maintaining the ability to drive cross-country without frequent charging stops.