For many years, automakers have been attempting to design a viable electric vehicle. It has long been known that oil is a finite resource and with the demands for oil largely driven by America's demands, as well as the ever-increasing demands of other industrialized nations, both automakers and governments have long been desiring of a pollution-free alternative that does not rely on oil and gasoline to run.

Why, then, have such efforts, with all the time and money spent on them, been largely unsuccessful? The answer is not a simple one, for there are many factors which act as driving forces in this case.

First, it is important to examine why the development of an electric, pollution-free vehicle, or at the very least the continuing development of hybrid gas-electric vehicles is a desirable goal. The world's population is continuing to expand at a very fast rate in many...