49 States have snow

[a completely inoffensive name]

Conspiracy theories are almost always theories.

There is no grand scheme to stop the electric car by some money-grubbers. American car companies have simply chosen to focus their attention on other aspects of their compaby, as they have had the belief that the SUV is the way forward, not the electric car.

But there is no focus on SUV's in Japan or Germany, nor are there any allegations of "powerful lobbies" keeping the electric car down, but there still hasn't come a revolutionary electic car from either of them. Why? Probably because we're not smart enough to make them yet, we haven't come that far in our scientific progress.

Perhaps, but you don't have the same knowledge of the corporate-government relationship the US has had since the large railroad subsidies of the 1840s.

EDIT: By that I mean for the US, it is not outside the realm of possibility for lobbyists to suppress research efforts or at least funding towards organizations that were involved in such research.