Perhaps I should have been clearer. Of course I know that research is happening on power storage and delivery I mean that perhaps car manufacturers are not best placed to lead the research on item 1. as their needs are driven by the desire to reuse existing motor vehicle designs.
So combining 1. and 3. it might make sense to say, have a switchable battery bay allowing on demand electric cars to run 24x7 by returning to a pod switching station. This works against the model of individual car ownership though and is not really in the interest of manufacturers.
As for your comments Jocko on electric motors, maybe the current design of motor is super efficient, but what else could be added to the mix and what about different types of propulsion? Might seem daft but what about rail gun style linear motors adding motive power to compatible vehicles on long hills on motorways, for example. Integrated with on board power and kinetic energy recovery it could make a significant difference to vehicle range.
Why are electric motors best fitted to the wheels? Why not make them the wheels? I have a friend who is a professor at Warwick and they are looking into exactly that.
I think Henry Ford's famous quote on innovation - "If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said 'faster horses'" has been forgotten. I think the car manufacturers are the ones now designing faster horses and somebody else may well come up with the new answer for renewable forms of transport.
And as I said earlier, car manufacturers are looking for the best design of all round vehicle, when what might be needed is a better form of urban transport supplemented by traditional petroleum powered vehicles for extra urban, long distance and specialist uses.