This is a complex situation, but you've done a decent summary of some of the issues with EVs and hybrids. So far there is no perfect solution. EVs doe have some issues, but so does everything else.
First, gasoline, while it has many issues has a lot of advantages. It has a high energy density as well as other aspects that make it an ideal fuel source, and that's before you even consider the robust infrastructure in place to support it. But it does produce a lot of pollution and just accessing its reserves is becoming more intensive (want to talk about dirty, read up on the Canadian shale sands, or ocean drilling).
EVs do have a lot of issues at the moment, and yes the electricity they utilize can come from dirty sources, but electricity is still relatively cleaner than gasoline, but we do need more modern nuclear plants, and it'd be good to also build up infrastructure like wind and solar.
The biggest environmental problem with electric drivetrains are the batteries and the rare earth materials. Batteries have improved and there's a lot of research being done to improve them, but so far few tangible ones that have actually been able to be mass produced. Even without battery advancements we could still move to EVs pretty significantly, so if we had say fusion reactors, then that would likely be our best path as the electricity production and using EVs would be much cleaner. Or if we can actually get some tangible battery breakthroughs, and it would help big time.
As for hybrids living up to their potential, it depends on the drivers. If you get one expecting to drive it like a modern powerful family sedan (and therefore compensate with heavy throttle use), then yeah they will fall short. But that's an easy fix, just stop driving like that (there's really no good reason for it to begin with, regardless of what you drive, assuming you're interested in fuel economy).
I'm guessing this is a big part of why the i8 is seeing it fall well short of it's expected output, i'ts being driven like it's a DeLorean and if you can hit 88mph somehow it'll distort time or something. It's just what's going to happen when you stress a small engine like that, and because of how the car is setup you'll be stressing that engine almost constantly. I've honestly been surprised at the rampant positive buzz over the i8 as it really doesn't seem special, it just seems to be that people were expecting a Prius and got something more sporty instead, so they were pleasantly surprised which leads to overly positive initial feedback. Also like the DeLorean you hear a lot of talk about how the looks draw a crowd. Not that it's a bad car (and certainly not as bad as the DeLorean which was quite the dog, but I do think there are some similarities in that it's not as sporty as it's portrayed; the tires alone limit it quite a lot; it's good for a grand tourer, its really just not an outright sports car, although it can do a good impression of one now and again, but compare it to say a Stingray and well I'd hazard it will fall short in everything but acceleration, and the Stingray likely could get 30mpg cruising at 70-80mph). We'll see how it fares in the coming years, both in real world performance, livability, and reliability. I do wonder if the price isn't that high because they baked in the cost of keeping the batteries in great shape (meaning they'll swap battery packs if there's noticeable issues and then probably service the packs to replace any bad cells).
As for fuel cells, they're actually further away from being viable than pure EVs as it requires similar advancements in the on car packaging, as well as major rollout of infrastructure. Many of the fuels also are currently not very well suited for widespread use (i.e. transporting hydrogen to filling stations would be more volatile and expensive than gasoline, think the tanker trucks). Compressed natural gas actually might not be bad as there's already a pretty good infrastructure for it in place, but not sure how it compares, I wouldn't think terribly favorably for whatever reason, I'm guessing gasoline/oil still edges it out in the base cost for the energy you get. Then of course hydrogen requires a lot of energy to make it suitable for fuel cell use.
Biofuels are in many ways even further away from being viable than those even. Yes ethanol is abundant, but it has a whole host of problems, the big one being that using a major food source (or even just the land that would normally go to producing that) as an energy source causes significant conflicts, such that you'd rather not do that. There are further issues (basically the inputs needed to grow and convert say corn into ethanol exceed the benefits of using it as a fuel for vehicles and realistically we are not going to be able to grow enough to make it a true viable alternative for gasoline; it does serve a role though, as I believe it replaced some other more toxic chemical additive to gasoline, MTBE I believe). Sugarcane and I believe switchgrass are even better plants to try and make ethanol from, but sugarcane only grows well in some areas - Brazil has a lot of sugarcane based ethanol for instance - but overall still not ideal solutions. The best way to make biofuels would be to convert it from waste, which is possible by inputting bacteria into tanks of waste, where the bacteria consumes the waste and then produces, well waste of their own, but waste that can be turned into a fuel source (it's similar to ethanol I believe). The problem here is that they don't even know if it will be economically viable (currently it's not really), let alone on a large enough scale to be able to realistically try to use it as even a significant fuel source alternative (on the order of say ethanol). I believe there's even some looking into using algae to make biofuel.
But essentially, none of these are ready to replace gasoline. However there's a lot of research being put forth into finding what can. Likely, the best option, especially for our lifetimes, will be a mixture of fuel sources. Diversity in energy production, where we can get economies of scale and advancement of the various methods, while not being wholly reliant should there be major issues. Does the future hold fusion reactors, fuel cells that help provide power and also clean drinking water, high capacity batteries, kinetic and chemical (heat) recovery systems everywhere, among many other advancements? Who knows, it'll almost certainly be decades before we even begin to find out.
Realistically, I'd guess that pure EVs have the best near potential for offering an alternative to gasoline in vehicles. Especially in highly populated areas where there should be ample access to charging, there's not as much need for very high battery capacity, and there's a need to try and limit the exhaust gas pollutions for public health. No it's not perfect, but it is a step up. Many of the developments EVs need, fuel cell vehicles would as well since, for instance hydrogen is about producing electricity not being used in an ICE. And there's a need for improved batteries in general, which means it's getting more development than fuel cells, and so I'm guessing it will provide more benefits sooner than fuel cells, but a breakthrough in either could significantly shift which one is more viable.
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