This is a hugely facinating discussion and in my opinion one of the key issues surrounding the general acceptance, or otherwise, of BEVs.
There have been a lot of very enlightened comments. However, I think that many people seem to be looking at the current situation with the state of the art regarding batteries and charging and are assuming that this is how things will be in the future. There is no point, or at least there is no real benefit, in commenting on the current situation as if this is how it will be in the future. It is a very fast moving environment and things are changing quickly and for the better.
People talk about the range of the Leaf and seem to be suggesting that the Leaf is not good for long trips. Some are even saying that there is little point in deploying a fast charge network because the range of the Leaf (and other BEVs) is short and that charging is slow. This is not how it will be.
The Leaf, and other BEVs, will soon have batteries that give them a range of 150, 200, 250 or even 300 miles. The fact that the Tesla S has 300 miles is a strong indicator of this and the only real barrier seems to be price. Prices will fall as volume increases. It will be an incremental process and will take a few years but the technology for larger capacity batteries is here already and it is still developing.
Charging times are also coming down as is the cost of the chargers. CHAdeMO chargers have dropped in price here in the UK from about 25K GBP to about 8K GBP in the last year and I would imagine that there is room for further reductions still. Charging times are coming down too with the latest Nissan chargers charging to 80% in 20 mins. With the development of capacitor technology and fast-charging battery cells this could come down to just minutes.
The issue of whether we need as many chargers as gas stations is really a short-term one. Once the gas station owners and the gas companies realise that rather than losing EV owners as customers they could not only retain us but make more profit from us than when we were ICE owners they will find ways to deploy charging stations in gas stations. I wouldn't be surprised if in time most gas stations have a charging station and gradually they will switch away from gasoline and more towards electricity.
Of course, these changes will be slow and so for now we will all have to suffer the consequenses of being in an undeveloped market, but eventually all of the issues raised will be resolved... I am convinced.