It is not about all that fancy internet-connected GPS attached entertainment systems and ECUs - they are easily hacked and removed.
It is about much more evil thing.
I already wrote about energy yoke on your neck.
I know, you already get it.
With ICE(Internal Combustion Engine) car, you could easily stock fuel for a bad day, you could grow plants and use their oil in your diesel, you could build wood gas generator and run on wood, you could even run your gasoline engine on methane from cow shit. Really, nobody could stop you from rinding your ICE car when you need it.
That is not the case with electric cars. You charge them from centralized electricity network, that could be turned off in a second, if they want to stop any travels.
And charging electric car using home devices like gasoline generators or some solar panels or whatever is not like filling a tank from barrel, and even not like starting a fire in wood gas generator. In the best situation (gasoline/diesel generator) It will take a day to get only few hundred miles and you still need fuel to do it. And it is much more fuel per mile.
So, buying electric car you completely tie yourself to the good will of giant electric corporation / authorities.
And in emergnecy, say, when you will need to ride away, they just turn off electricity few days before. You have a car, but you can't fuel it, at least in reasonable time.
So, electric cars is not about all that ecology crap, and is not about some innovation things, they are just another way to take out some independency from people.
I know, sounds like I'm a Luddite, but that is not true. Really, electric cars is older that ICE ones, And still, just like at the beginning, they are just fancy overpriced and overengineered toys that could not withstand a real-life competition with ICE cars.
Really, it is all a result of using a battery, which is electrochemical device with inevitable temperature dependence, limited cycles, cost and all other flaws.
EVs without battery is used widely without any problems and have a solid niche in worldwide transportation for a long time - electric locomotives/trains, trams, trolley buses, etc. So electric powertrain is not a source of problems. And honestly, I think it is much better than ICE powertrain, it is simplier, reliable and have better dynamic parameters.
But instead of development a good reliable and independent electric power source for electric cars, they just push obviously inappropriate batteries locking users to electric companies and limiting them by climate conditions.
Seems that promising fuel cells development is intentionally slowed down. First - a patents for protone membranes, that make this simple sheets of plastic overpriced to the level when all idea become void. Small 1kW DMFC costs like a helicopter. Second - every year some top brand promise fuel cells for notebooks/smartphones. For a 20 years. Without any result. Toshiba once manufactured a small commercial batch of direct methanol charger, Dynaro, with 5V 1A IIRC, but the manufacturing was quickly cut down without any explanation and reason, ignoring the obvious public ineterst and demand. So, we have a working technology, but it is obviously supressed. Interesting that direct alcohol fuel cells solve most problems of batteries - instant readiness, unlimited idle storage, convenient fuel storage, decent efficiency of 30-40%, and they produce enough heat when working to heat a car in cold climate. Unfortunately they have some wear (proton membranes become clogged with impurities of fuel), and while it is extremely easy to replace worn membranes, their cost is enormous.
IDK, is this a conspiracy of battery makers or something more evil and complex, but here we are. And it seems that there no any changes in the roadmap of EVs planned.
Electric drive trains can be good, depending on the use. A tank or a train that needs to get moving can make use of an electric motors maximum torque output at 0 rpm for instance. Higher rpm results in lower power output on an electric motor, so low rpm use like a diesel is ideal. But as you’ve stated the battery is the weak point in the chain. Lithium ion in a stop gap, hydrogen is nice but storage is an issue, when it comes to energy density petroleum is awesome. Easy to store and transport, easy enough to make biodiesel or alcohol to keep your fleet running in the apocalypse, but the battery is the weak point. I’m not looking forward to seeing the junkyards full of EV’s in the next decade, there’s already some filling up with impossible to recycle batteries. And even if they can recycle them, the cost of it and pollution from the process vs just making a new one is almost always lower to just make a new one. I love the old cars. My dad’s 1965 convertible runs and drives great still. My 1977 4 door hardtop starts and purrs like the 1980’s didn’t even happen yet. Cheap parts from rockauto keep my fleet of cars and trucks running happily, but an EV just isn’t getting a parking spot next to my other vehicles for a long long time, if one ever does. Hell, we had motherboards able to report in plain English what went wrong in the early 2000’s. Other languages available too if I recall. We have tons of great technology that NEVER gets used. Your car could tell you via the radio EXACTLY what’s gone wrong but that would cut into the stealership profits. Can’t have that. Dry sump oil systems that have been used since ww2 still aren’t common even when they could ensure zero downtime on industrial generators, for instance.
The way locomotives are powered will not change.