I used to work at GM Advanced Technology Vehicles (home of the EV1) and I can tell you what killed it, they sucked!
We used to drive them when our security vehicles went down. They were fairly good driving vehicles, for about 60 miles, then they would slow way, WAY, down just before they conked out. Recharge time was about 4 hours, assuming the batteries were good, some of them needed replacement and would only recharge partially and only go about 40 miles. The battery packs were custom made and so were replacements. In fact every single EV1 was effectively custom built and there were no parts in actual production, which is why GM scrapped them, they didn't want to get sued when a part went bad and the owner attempted to jury-rig something to keep it running.
In fact, electric vehicles are the most polluting vehicles ever built. Years ago a study was done which compared the electric Ford Ranger to a 4-cylinder Ranger. The electric ranger required an average of 4 TONS of coal for one recharge (remember you not only need the power you put into the batteries, but also the power to push those little electrons through the wires, and then there are all the losses that come with the power grid) and dumped more pollution into the air than running the gas Ranger 100,000 miles.
I like hybrids (they converted ATV to the GM, Daimler, Chrysler, BMV Hybrid Development Center while I was there) but the suck in America. You see, most miles driven in the US are highway miles where Hybrids are the least efficient. Hybrids depend on your hitting the brakes which are like an electric motor and recharge the batteries. Most hybrids are "weak-hybrids" that use the electrics to assist the gas motor, rather than "strong-hybrids" that only use the gas to recharge the batteries. I had units at my facility that got 110 MPG or 70 on the Highway, and they cost about 80 to 90% more than a diesel versions. In fact, the engineers would tell you that even at $4.50 a gallon it would take 9 years to recoup the increase in cost, but even then that didn't count the cost of the replacement battery (about 3 to $7000 depending on the model). I will admit though the BMW X6 (which I drove even before they were announced) was a REALLY cool vehicle.
In reality the reason electric vehicles will not work today is the power-grid and battery technology. The grid wastes more energy than we use because of the inefficiencies of copper wire and all the interconnected systems of generators, transformers and everything else. If the power grid was 100% efficient we would need only a fraction of the power we generate, but it ain't. The other issue is that current batteries are pitifully inefficient themselves, they don't store or deliver all the power you put into them. If we had good large-scale storage systems we could run electrical systems at peak efficiency all the time and not waste energy running them up and down with demand.
As to the nuclear waste issue. The reactor rods are only "Waste" because the US government will not allow them to be reprocessed. A reactor rod will not sustain a reaction when 5% of the rod has converted to other materials (plutonium, neptunium, etc.). By reprocessing the rods you get all those very valuable products and only require replacing that missing 5%. The anti-nuke movement got reprocessing stopped after Three Mile Island and DuPont loved it because it means that you have to keep digging up and processing fresh Uranium, and then somebody got the great idea to convert the old rods into anti-tank ammo (FYI there ain't no such thing as "Depleted" Uranium, it just won't sustain a controlled reaction). If we did reprocess the rods (and take back the DP ammo) we could supply all the electrical power for the US (assuming again we built enough reactors) for 1000 years (and that includes the increases due to expanding population etc.).
One last bit of trivia, I was going to be in "Who killed the Electric Car" but they didn't like my agent, so they cut my appearance, as the security officer keeping them out of ATV.
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