I think you've summed it up well. The average commute for Americans is just a few minutes and a few miles. The vast majority of us could probably use an electric car with no problems for our daily commutes. I know the wife and I could - our commutes are about 20-25 miles round trip. A 70 mile range is more than enough.
But a 70 mile range is not enough for our trips, unless you can cut down recharge times (ultracapacitors, anyone?).
But there is no reason why we couldn't have one pure electric car and one standard midsize sedan for longer trips, other than the lack of options to buy.
Now, the electricity does have to come from somewhere, but that can be coal or nuclear - no need to depend on foreign sources of energy.
That would make sense for me and my wife. Yes, the electricity comes from somewhere, just like the gasoline. There's always a cost for transportation. Cutting down on reliance on imported fossil fuels seems a worthwhile endeavor to me, though.
As I said, I'm not going to buy one of these things right now. I have an aversion to new vehicles. I try to drive 10 year old vehicles, as a rule. They're very cost effective for me, since I drive low miles each year. I don't commute, since I work out of my home office. We don't take a lot of long trips. My 10 year old cars tend to stay with me for about 4 years, on average, with minimal maintenance costs. I sell them after that time, usually for almost what I paid for them. It all works out very well. Beyond that, having only liability insurance on them is a big savings.
So, I'll wait a bit, and buy one of these fancy electric cars in a few years....used.
Electric for around town are justifiable.. as a secondary vehicle... but the problem is at 30k+ that's not worth it for a vehicle you can only commute in. Now get them down to 5k or less and you'll sell em by the boatload.
Basically get them to the cost of a moped or scooter and you'll have so much demand you won't be able to keep up... until it gets there though it just remains pipe dream for mainstream.