With both lower cost and better performance, electric vehicles will likely overtake gasoline-powered ones by about 2025.Įven ten years ago, most of us couldn’t imagine a self-driving car. Assuming even modest increases in storage capacity, the electric vehicle will rank better on initial cost, range, performance, and ongoing maintenance and fuel costs. By 2025, that Nissan Leaf battery pack will cost less than $1,800, making the cost of the electric motor plus battery pack less than the price of a comparable gasoline motor. This exponential reduction in battery cost and improvement in battery technology, more than anything else, will affect both the cost and range of electric cars. Between 19, the capacity that could be bought with $100 went up by a factor of 11. The trend continues through to the present day. Ramez Naam, author of The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet, recently explained that lithium-ion batteries have a fifteen year history of exponential price reduction. When comparable gas-powered cars are about $20,000, the high cost of the battery pack alone is a huge barrier to widespread adoption, whether the cost passed on to the customer or the government, or hidden by the manufacturer. The Nissan Leaf battery pack alone costs about $18,000 (though government incentives bring down the overall vehicle cost to the customer). What limits their adoption then? Two factors: cost and range (and charging infrastructure, to a lesser extent, but that will be remedied when there is more demand).

They may want speed or economical transportation or family-friendly minivans, but how the vehicle is powered isn’t their main concern.Įxamples like the Tesla have shown that electric vehicles perform on par with gas-powered cars. Here’s why:Įxcept for early adopters of technology and diehard environmental customers, most people aren’t buying a fuel type, they’re buying transportation. It might seem like a slow start, but electric cars will soon form the majority of all vehicles. Fully electric cars like the Nissan Leaf and Tesla are mere curiosities, representing only 0.1% of all cars purchased in the U.S. Hybrids vehicles, with their combination of both gas and battery power, represent 3% of the cars on the road today, up from zero just ten years ago. Image Credit: Daniel Piraino via photopin Electric Cars

Ai apocalypse by william hertling