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posted by cmn32480 on Thursday June 01 2017, @05:08PM   Printer-friendly
from the terminally-positive dept.

Battery powered cars will soon be cheaper to buy than conventional gasoline ones, offering immediate savings to drivers, new research shows.

Automakers from Renault SA to Tesla Inc. have long touted the cheaper fuel and running costs of electric cars that helps to displace the higher upfront prices that drivers pay when they buy the zero-emission vehicles.

Now research from Bloomberg New Energy Finance indicates that falling battery costs will mean electric vehicles will also be cheaper to buy in the U.S. and Europe as soon as 2025. Batteries currently account for about half the cost of EVs, and their prices will fall by about 77% between 2016 and 2030, the London-based researcher said.

"On an upfront basis, these things will start to get cheaper and people will start to adopt them more as price parity gets closer," said Colin McKerracher, analyst at the London-based researcher. "After that it gets even more compelling."

The secret is in the battery.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 01 2017, @06:14PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 01 2017, @06:14PM (#518975)

    Electric Cars Soon Will Cost Less Than Gasoline Autos

    as soon as 2025

    between 2016 and 2030

    8-13 years is apparently "soon" now

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by DannyB on Thursday June 01 2017, @06:38PM (3 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 01 2017, @06:38PM (#518980) Journal

    Approximately 1973, four function pocket calculators cost hundreds of dollars. Pocket calculators still relatively new. Desktop electronic (not electromechanical) calculators have been expensive for awhile.

    January 1977. Pocket calculators (four function) are about $20. In the January 1977 issue of Popular Electronics, the Solid State column predicts that in 1977 prices will decrease to approximately $5. (Download Popular Electronics here [americanradiohistory.com]. January 1977 issue, page 90 of the magazine, page 80 of the PDF. Prediction for the year:

    "A drop in the price of simple pocket calculators to the "five - dollar" range. Frankly, I can see no reason why a simple four - banger calculator can't be manufactured at a price competitive with pocket -sized AM receivers. Both products require about the same number of similarly priced components, and both require comparable labor for assembly."

    Of course, you can check out the January 1978 issue. Page 64 of issue, page 60 of PDF, and see for yourself.

    Remember when PC compatible microcomputers cost thousands of dollars. Remember how exciting it was when they eventually broke the $1000 price barrier. (As capabilities kept increasing.) Remember when they broke the $400 price barrier.

    Now the economics, factors that drive price, and technology of electric cars are somewhat different. But is it really so hard to imagine? Renewables are already price competitive with coal. Who thought solar panels and windmills would get cheaper. Remember what a 60 inch TV cost not so many years ago?

    I expect that even before electric cars cost the same as gasoline cars, the major transition and disruption will already be underway. Because electric cars have less to maintain, and the cost of fossil fuel that must be purchased on an ongoing basis.

    Smartphones became mainstream within a very few years and completely changed society. Radios? Television sets? How long did it take before most people had automobiles instead of horses?

    The change can happen within a relatively short number of years. There isn't one single day you can point to it happening. But only a few years later you look back and realize the change.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Thursday June 01 2017, @09:43PM (1 child)

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday June 01 2017, @09:43PM (#519053)

      You're correct about change happening quickly. It didn't take long from the introduction of the first iPhone for everyone to have a slate-style smartphone.

      However, a lot depends on infrastructure. The smartphones already had all they needed when the iPhone showed up: ubiquitous cellular networks with data. So all you had to do to take advantage of the smartphone revolution was go buy one. The cellular+data networks were already there because the "feature phones" that preceded them needed them. However, it took quite a while from the introduction of cellular phones until they became commonplace: they were around even in the 70s IIRC, and I remember the bag-phones and car-phones in the 80s and then the handheld phones that were the size of a book. For a long time, only rich people and real estate agents could afford them. It wasn't until around 2000 that it seemed like everyone had one finally, and they started getting more advanced with crappy games and web browsers. And smartphones were around before the iPhone too, with Blackberries and some WinCE devices which were terrible; that went on for years until the iPhone came out and suddenly made smartphone both "cool" and actually nice to use.

      The problem with EVs is a lack of infrastructure: they have limited range (though expensive ones have plenty for driving around all day), and limited ways to recharge them quickly, so if you're doing a lot of driving, they're not very feasible. If you have a Tesla, you can go to their Supercharger stations for a long trip, but those are only located at a limited number of select locations, and only have so many charging stations. You'll have to budget some significant time to recharge there too, though you can overlap that with a meal stop. But overall, this really limits your travel. And if you have something other than a Tesla, you can't use the Supercharger stations, because there's no actual standard for charging stations that all EV makers use.

      So for now, EVs are great if you want a low-maintenance car that you can just charge up at home in your garage at night, and only drive to work and some local errands. But wait, what if you live in a townhouse in the city and park on the street? Unless they've installed chargers there (haha) you're out of luck. What if you live in an apartment or high-rise? Again, sorry. "But this stuff is coming!" Is it? When the EV makers can't decide on a single charging standard? It's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem, but again remember the smartphones: when the iPhone and early Android phones came on the market, all the infrastructure was *already there*; consumers had to do nothing but buy it and use it. This just isn't the case with EVs, sadly.

      I do believe a lot of people would be well-served by an EV, especially families with multiple vehicles and private houses with garages where they can retain one gas-powered car for long trips or other exceptional circumstances, and use the EV for one person's daily commute. But a lot of people don't fit this description: single people, people with extremely long commutes, people without garages, etc.

      More likely, it's going to be a big like cellphones in general (i.e., going from the dawn of cellphones to the current state with everyone having a slate-style smartphone): we'll start out with some rich people and some minorities with special circumstances having them, and using them for a decade or three while the rest of us go without, then the infrastructure will slowly get built up, standards adopted, technology improved, etc., and then within the space of 5 years everyone's going to switch over.

      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 02 2017, @12:14AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 02 2017, @12:14AM (#519117)

        > If you have a Tesla, you can go to their Supercharger stations for a long trip, .....

        * There are about twice as many Chevy dealers in the USA (with charge points for Chevy Bolt) as there are Supercharger stations.

        * How long will it be before some hacker/cracker works out how to make any electric car mimic a Tesla...so that other brands of car can be charged at a Supercharger? The Supercharger near me is completely automated, I've never seen anyone from Tesla near it (maybe there is video monitoring?)

    • (Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday June 01 2017, @10:28PM

      by Arik (4543) on Thursday June 01 2017, @10:28PM (#519076) Journal
      Yes, you can get hordes of crappy calculators really inexpensively today. Tiny fractions of what we used to pay for them.

      But unfortunately you can no longer buy a good calculator, pretty much at any price. You'd have to have it custom built if you want anything worth having.

      --
      If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 01 2017, @11:33PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 01 2017, @11:33PM (#519104)

    look it up on the chart https://xkcd.com/678/ [xkcd.com]