Here’s a good piece from the Christian Science Monitor on electric cars and the bitter reality that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. An excerpt:

Advocates of these next-gen cars, however, often act like someone who takes for granted that a light will go on whenever they flip a switch. They fail to ask two critical questions:
Will electric utilities be able to build enough power plants for all these electron guzzlers? And, even if they can, will new plants simply burn coal or oil in the same old dirty way — negating to a degree the anticarbon benefits of hybrid-electric cars?
Only a handful of studies have looked at these questions. “It seems that general excitement with the idea of PHEVs springs from the perceived possibility of a ‘free lunch,’ ” states the latest study, done by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. “There are some concerns, however, about whether this lunch is really ‘free.’ “
The study says many electric-car owners will likely want to charge their vehicles in the evening during peak usage, rather than at night — even with lower rates. The result may be a rise in coal or oil burning by utilities. And all electricity consumers could see rates rise by 40 percent or more.
In Britain, a similar study by the Campaign for Better Transport found that a move to electric vehicles might require increasing the country’s electricity capacity by 2.4 to 3.5 times.

Nuclear would go a long way to solving this, but I highly doubt we’ll see any new nuclear plants any time soon.