The Tesla Roadster is an all-electric sports car you can buy today.

Plug-in hybrids run for a certain distance on batteries (so far, hackers have been able to create plug-in hybrids that run for about 10 miles on batteries). After that, they revert to standard hybrid operation, which uses gas and electricity. When you get home in the evening, you plug the car in and recharge the batteries so that the following day you can drive another 10 miles with the electric charge.

Today you can only get a plug-in hybrid by hacking your Prius to add more batteries to it. We filmed members of the Palo Alto nonprofit CalCars doing just this for our QUEST story on plug-in hybrids in 2007. If you're not handy with tools, you can have someone else retrofit your Prius with the necessary battery pack. Luscious Garage, in San Francisco, has started offering this service. They're featured in today’s QUEST story "Waiting for the Electric Car," which explores why all-electric everyday cars remain an elusive goal. The limiting factor is the difficulty in making a battery that is powerful, long-lasting and cheap. QUEST goes behind the scenes to a battery lab at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley to find out what goes into the making of a lithium-ion battery and why it’s taking so long to make one that can power an all-electric car, or even a plug-in hybrid that can go for more than 10 miles on its electric charge.

Watch the Waiting for the Electric Car television story online.

In fact, Darell Dickey is even more hard core about this stuff than the piece reveals. Darell powers his Rav4 EV – as well as his entire house – on 100% solar power, and he took pains to tell me that he considers even the EV a compromise. Most of the time, like so many Davis dwellers, he rides his bike.

Today if you're driving a full size EV, you're likely either extremely devoted, extremely wealthy, or both. The Tesla Roadster retails for about $100K; another car we mention briefly, the Scion eBox (converted from gas versions by LA-based AC Propulsion) sells for $70K. Most everyone I spoke with hopes this will soon change.

Make sure to check out our photo set on Flickr which includes: photos of all the cars discussed in this report. You can also hear our radio story on electric cars online and find additional links and resources.