The range isn't really a problem: all you have to do is have "battery stations" where you swap out the batteries in a few minutes. This has its issues (related to ownership of the batteries, and also standardization), but technically it's completely doable. They've had lead-acid batteries for over a century now, so if society had wanted to make EVs the norm, this could have been done.
It's still an issue, requiring large infrastructure investments to build battery stations and the charging equipment. Compare this to gasoline and it's precursor mixtures which could be derived from coal, for which there already existed massive distribution infrastructure.
I think the author reads entirely too much into the supposed psychology of an IC powered vehicle instead of the much more simple explanation: path dependency.
