A flat battery

is not something anyone wants. 
There are more batteries around these days. My cheap watch has one. The watch cost me about $5 from Woolies. It is cheaper to buy a new watch than replace the battery. (I have a better watch which you actually wind but it was a present from the Senior Cat and is reserved for "going out".)
There are batteries in things like that now, things we would not once have ever thought of as having a battery - unless you are under 21. There are batteries in the Senior Cat's bedroom clock and in his hearing aids. (He hates changing the batteries in those - another excuse not to wear them.) I remember the batteries for the hearing aids worn by the children in the nursery school. They wore them in a pouch on the front of their clothing. I remember having to finger spell things to my friend J.... because the batteries had failed on hers and her choice use of Anglo-Saxon words to describe their failure. 
There are batteries in this and that and something else. Some of them are rechargeable and some are not. (The battery which opens the bin Middle Cat gave us for Christmas is not rechargeable. I may just forget to replace it when the time comes. It is still irritating me.)
A friend of ours wanted to put a small electric motor on my trike. I presume that would have meant a battery as well. It doesn't matter I told him "no, I need the exercise" and, for me, it was just another thing to go wrong.
And that is a bit the way I feel about electric vehicles right now. I know there is a push to get more of them on the road, that they are seen as clean and green and far less polluting but...
The current Leader of the Opposition - soon to be Prime Minister if the polls are to be believed - reckons half of all vehicles on the road by 2030 will be electric under his government. He also reckons it only takes eight to ten minutes to recharge the batteries.
He's wrong, seriously wrong, on both counts. The cost of electric vehicles still puts them out of reach of most people. Less than 5% of cars on Downunder roads are electric. The take up rate is going to have to far exceed anything that has so far happened in the car industry. What is more Tesla is struggling to produce their cheaper version.
One of the problems is that it takes at least half an hour to partially charge the batteries. It isn't like pouring petrol into the tank. It isn't something that can be done on the road if you happen to run out of fuel. It takes some hours, generally overnight, to recharge the batteries.
I have no doubt that these things will improve. Prices will fall as the vehicles become more common. There will be improvements in technology which will allow a much faster recharge. Perhaps we will have the roof of the car covered in solar panels? Mind you that will only work if the sun is shining.
All these things remind me of a toy the Senior Cat made for one of Middle Cat's nephews by marriage. He was not quite three at the time and the Senior Cat had made him a little maypole like toy with four cars on it. You could take the people out of the cars. You could twirl the ropes around and then get them to swing back. J.... was having great fun with it but he was also puzzled. He kept picking it up and looking underneath it. 
We realised then that he was a battery-age child. He was looking for the battery. 
J... is an adult now and still has the toy. He's saving it for his own children. "They will be really puzzled."
Yes, perhaps they will be for a while - but I hope it fascinates them.
Their children will probably stare fascinated at a diesel engine and wonder how people ever used them.