It’s really the only reason I haven’t bought one, as I regularly travel across Pennsylvania from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia and especially in the wintertime I understand the range is even less because of the cold.
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Others have discussed the energy density issue between fuel and electricity.
To take it a step further. To increase the range the vehicle will require more batteries or to limit speeds (either by smaller motor or otherwise). Past a certain speed, a lot of a car’s energy is used to “push” away the air (called drag). The slower you drive a car, the less energy per mile it uses (broadly speaking).
More batteries means heavier cars which also means larger motors, larger vehicles and other compromises. This adds a fair amount of cost. Making the vehicle too costly means fewer interested buyers. So the car company has to pick a compromise between range and cost to maximize sales revenue/value.
Since every car model requires many millions of dollars of developing and testing to bring to market, not many car makers were interested in producing ultra high range models as it would very likely not sell well enough to recover the development cost. In that sense, it isn’t “difficult” from a technology perspective (ELI5) just that it didn’t make much sense from a profit perspective.
This might change as the market matures. Manufacturers might be willing to explore new market niches and technology development (more efficient motors, lighter and cheaper batteries) might change the equation.
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