Batteries are still too heavy
Changing. Rapidly.
take too long to charge
Improving, rapidly. Much more rapidly than, say, gas mileage.
(batteries) are too expensive
Sorry to be a broken record, but this too is improving rapidly.
require materials that in widespread use will probably become far more of a problem than fossil fuels in terms of scarcity
This assumes that battery tech will remain static, and use the same materials, forever. Bad assumption, there.
Or the amount of infrastructure retro-fitting that needs to happen (power to parking garages being just one).
This is already starting to happen and will only accelerate. I'm working on a gigantic office building project which will have hundreds of charging stations in its parking area. This will be the norm, very soon. And perhaps you forgot, but building tens of thousands of gas stations all over the place wasn't easy, either...nor is maintaining them. We already have a beefy electrical infrastructure; we just have to keep working on that.
Or ignoring issues or range and recharge times.
Tesla's range is already over 250 miles; this is getting very close to that of many gas guzzlers. And again, this is rapidly improving, even though we're not working very hard on it as a society. Imagine what would happen if we tried!
Power is not free. An electric vehicle still needs to get power from somewhere and that power requires all the normal transmission infrastructure.
Yeah, and we already have that infrastructure. By the way, gas isn't free, either. Nor is it nearly as efficient as electric power can be.
Someone brought up what's happening in NJ but if you had an electric car you'd be even more screwed. At least now you can transport gas to people.
Uh, you can transport electricity to people, too. We have power lines for that.
Seriously, out of cost, weight, range and charging time all of them need to get an order of magnitude better to even be on par with fuel-driven vehicles.
Er, no. Do you know what an order of magnitude IS? Cost: we're within a factor of 2-3 of this being affordable, even if you use the very expensive Tesla as your test case. Weight: Already at parity with many cars. Range: Already discussed above; near parity with many gas vehicles. Charging time: This doesn't have to get much better at all; you can recharge at night.