Thanks to all for their thoughtful comments.
In terms of handling cold/hot, lithium batteries need to be thermally managed. Tesla has perfected this already and I am sure that others who want to make an impact will too.
It is true, that currently the battery cost is about 40-50% of EV vehicle especially for pure EV with 200-350 mile range. The economy of scale will be achieved by the Gigafactory production and output. If all works out, it will bring the price to low level and provide adequate output for massive EV production.
The main issue now is not to have a EV available but to have one with massive quantities to start ICE replacement wave. Again the limiting factor is battery unit output/availability.
Tesla is on the best track to fulfill this. Other manufacturers may not as Nissan Leaf, GM Volt and others will not be able to output adequate number of EVs.
To the poster that is worried with MN temperatures - Tesla sells a lot of their cars in Norway for few years now. Norway has voted to go ICEless in a few years.
Wikipedia read
Tesla Russian Winter test
In general, the public is very uneducated in terms of basic EV research, physics and current state of things. A lot of great progress has been made in just past few years and it will only explode further.
If anybody feels like and would like to catch up, I do recommend watching some of
Fully Charged