| SMMRY.com: EVs Are Not Close To Being As Cheap As Gas Cars, Mercedes Says
The electric vehicle industry has seen a massive transformation over the last decade, in no small part thanks to massive reductions in the cost of large lithium-ion battery packs. EVs may not get much cheaper at all over the next few years. Reaching so-called "Price parity," Schäfer said, just isn't possible with any current commercially available battery technology. The kind of affordable, high-density batteries required to make it possible either don't exist or only exist in tightly-controlled lab settings. While we wait for a breakthrough, Schäfer says they can't promise that EVs will get any cheaper in the near term. While increasing demand for large battery packs has helped through manufacturing advancements and economies of scale, it's this scale that is now posing a large challenge. Thanks to both the increasing popularity of EVs and continued growth in consumer electronics, the demand for lithium batteries is on pace to far outstrip the capacity of current rare-earth metal mines. |
Combustion engine efficiency improved and emissions dropped a lot over the years, even with no fundamental breakthroughs either. A lot of money was spent.