And neither can the Natural Gas, Diesel or even Hydrogen cars. What is needed is a Reconstruction of society, people living within walking distance of their jobs and where their shop. This will be a multi-step process, just like the process our society went through as it went from a society where people lived within walking distance of where their work and shopped to today's society where you live miles away from where you work and shop.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_StatesThe first problem with electric vehicles is the weight of the batteries (Something that does NOT exist if the electric vehicle is directly connected to the grid, such as in old fashioned Streetcars or modern LRVs, through you do have an increase loss over line as the electric lines get further from the power source, but this loss is way less then the loss of carrying batteries).
The Second Problem (and in many ways the worse problem) is the cost of converting some energy source to electric power. The loss is this transformation is high, over 50% energy loss (and according to some reports 75-90% loss). Now, electric drive itself is extremely efficient, the problem is producing the electricity NOT using the electricity. The gasoline engine is NOT as efficient as an electric engine BUT if we view the energy cost from point of production the situation changes, oil losses some energy as it moves from the pump to the refinery to your local gasoline station to your car. At that point the oil is used very inefficiently if you are looking at the engine alone. On the other hand some sort of energy (Wind, Coal, oil, hydro, nuclear etc) is used to produce the electricity, at a very inefficient rate. It is then transferred to the vehicle over the power lines relatively efficiently. At that point it is either used directly (as in an LRV) OR suffer a further loss of power as it is used to charge a battery and then used efficiently by the electric motors in the car.
Note the gasoline car has only one area of huge power loss, the engine itself, while the electric Car has two huge power losses, the generation of the electricity AND the charging of the batteries (I should note charging of batteries is improving given Lithium technology but that does NOT affect the huge loss do to generation of the electricity in the first place).
Now, renewable are viewed as a source of electric power, but most are still 20-30 years away (One recent proposal was to build generation plants underneath the Mississippi River using new technology that can generate electric power with even a slow flow of water, i.e. no dam is needed, but this is 20-30 years away at best). Solar and wind are still minor compared to hydro electric and all three produces no more then 3% of PRESENT electric usage. To replace oil with electric cars we have to double electric output (and triple energy input to produce electricity given the above loss in just producing electricity) just to replace the energy presently used in cars in the form of gasoline. No one is even proposing such a massive buildup of electric generation (and electric usage OUTSIDE of transportation is expected to double over the next 20 years, i.e. we may have electric blackouts do to lack of electric generation within 20 years even WITHOUT electric cars). Now, people advocate "off-peak" charging of electric cars and that will ease some of this pressure, but not enough to make electric cars one to one replacements of today's gasoline cars.
Now, electric cars will be part of the mix of transportation of the future, but most people will not own one (Taxis, ambulances, fire trucks etc will still exist and the cost tied in with electric drive will be way less then the need for these services). We will slowly return to living closer to where we work (and the stores will move closer to where people work to be near where people live). Our society will have to change including most people's outlook on how they get around. Out car center society has to die and electric cars, as most people envision them today, is an attempt to keep this car centered society alive in a people of high prices (do to low supply) of oil.