Pretty Soon Electric Cars Will Cost Less Than Gasoline

Megalith

Megalith

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New reports suggest that electric cars will actually cost less than gas-powered cars by as early as 2025. The major reason for this is falling battery prices: batteries account for about half the cost of an EV, yet they are forecasted to fall by 77 percent between 2016 and 2030. Some manufacturers believe that ownership costs of EVs will already equal conventional internal combustion engine vehicles by the early 2020s.

…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 percent 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.”
 
I think what would really push EV's would be.....more places where you can charge up and take care of things while you wait. One of the big concerns I've read is the lack of places where you can charge up your car. Gas stations are everywhere. You can practically navigate the US by how many gas stations are out there. I think if charging stations for EVs were more prevalent, or at least more widely advertised, it would ease the concern about being able to make it to/from your destination.

Example: Truck stop diners/off-highway restaurants/rest areas. It would be awesome if you could go to a highway oasis/rest area and plug in your car while you get out, stretch your legs a bit, maybe grab a bite to eat while you wait. Same would go for any truck stop diners and such. I was just looking on PlugShare and for the state of Michigan, the amount of high power stations is minimal at best. There seems to be a decent amount of public stations, but many are set up for businesses that don't serve food, or government facilities. I doubt these places would let just anyone drive up to charge up for a bit unless they had actual reason to be there. (i.e. worker, patient/customer with appointment, etc.) It seems some grocery stores, malls, and major chain restaurants offer a way to charge up, but it's not everywhere. Some PlugShare users apparently are willing to share their own home charging stations, which is great, but not everyone is comfortable with going to someone's house for the sole purpose of refueling their car. It might be a great way to make friends, but it's not everyone's cup of tea.
 
There was a time when gas stations did not exist, everyone rode horses. Then the first cars came (or horseless carriage if you prefer) and they sucked.

As the technology matured, Society made a transition. It didn't happen overnight. And now here we are.

Electric cars are the same thing. There will be a transition time but it will happen. I think we will see gas stations install chargers when it becomes worth it. It's a logical transition.

There are clear reasons to switch to electric cars over the next decade give or take. I can definitely see electric cars becoming cheaper. Less moving parts than the engine, and yes batteries will become cheaper.

I've heard all the counter arguments and quite frankly it's a load of crap. Once we get better batteries it's problem solved.

Yes the gas companies will be a barrier, but I don't believe they will stop progress. The first car company that comes out with an affordable electric that is ahead of the competition enough for the masses to want will have a product worth a fortune. Simply put, at some point it will not be worth it to take payoffs.

I'm very excited for electrics. It will be nice to cut down my commuting bill and hopefully just charge at home. Time will tell.
 
shad0w4life said:
Whats the plan to deal with all these batteries, in Calgary they freak out about putting compost in landfills now and you have to keep your rotting food in a special bin now.
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Recycle. As long as Li is being used there will be a market to recycle the batteries. Heck, even after a decade if the battery has 80% original charge, plug it into the grid - smart/renewable grid need as much energy storage as possible. Once the battery is completely used recycle them.

Once we move to simpler batteries - aluminum seems to be the current direction other than Li - it'll be cleaner.
Li-Air/Al-Air will make batteries with a near infinite life - just replace the air to restore the battery's capacity

A fun fact, the amount of electricity it takes to just refine one gallon of gas, I can drive about 14 miles in my Leaf
 
Brought to you by the same people that told us that you wouldn't be able to sell platter drives anymore by three years ago, because SSDs would be cheaper to make. Last I checked, there are affordable sub-$200 8TB platter drives, and an 8TB SSD would set me back $12K+.

Believe it when you see it, and what you see right now is that when a vehicle is offered in both gas and electric, the electric gives you less resale value, less range, more weight, and at a significantly higher price.
 
Ducman69 said:
Brought to you by the same people that told us that you wouldn't be able to sell platter drives anymore by three years ago, because SSDs would be cheaper to make. Last I checked, there are affordable sub-$200 8TB platter drives, and an 8TB SSD would set me back $12K+.

Believe it when you see it, and what you see right now is that when a vehicle is offered in both gas and electric, the electric gives you less resale value, less range, more weight, and at a significantly higher price.
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Your statement about weight is completely false. For example example, the chevy bolt weighs 3,580 lbs at the curb. The only reason resale value is lower is because you can't take the 7500$ in government rebates twice on the same car.
 
Chaos Machine said:
Your statement about weight is completely false. For example example, the chevy bolt weighs 3,580 lbs at the curb. The only reason resale value is lower is because you can't take the 7500$ in government rebates twice on the same car.
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I think you need to learn how to read. How much does the gasoline version of the Chevy Bolt weigh?

Woops! Try again, but you won't, because you know I'm right. Look at the Fiat 500 gas vs electric, the Ford Focus gas vs electric, the Audi A3 Diesel vs electric, the Kia Soul gas vs electric, the Smart Fourtwo gas vs electric.

Every. Time.

The electric version is lower resale, heavier weight, lower range, and higher price.
 
Ducman69 said:
I think you need to learn how to read. How much does the gasoline version of the Chevy Bolt weigh?

Woops! Try again, but you won't, because you know I'm right. Look at the Fiat 500 gas vs electric, the Ford Focus gas vs electric, the Audi A3 Diesel vs electric, the Kia Soul gas vs electric, the Smart Fourtwo gas vs electric.

Every. Time.

The electric version is lower resale, heavier weight, lower range, and higher price.
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You have a pretty narrow view it seems. Almost every electric vehicle we see from major manufacturers is basically the first generation of it's kind. The 7500 federal rebate is zero help to resale value either vs original price.

Look at the first generation of SSDs, I remember paying *a lot* for a basic 64GB SATA3 SanDisk back in 2008. The march of technology made it such that the resale on it was crap, the capacity sucked, and speed was relatively slow vs what was available years later. From a reliability standpoint, mechanical disks have nothing on SSDs, the only reason they are still around is because they have raw capacity still going for them if you still need to access or move data slowly.

Back to the car aspect, it doesn't help that a huge portion of the population sill has no idea what electric vehicles are, or what they are capable of. When the topic comes up they mostly rely on rumors and falsehoods to make their decision about them. "oh the batteries will die and you will be on the hook for a huge bill before a normal gas engine car would need something like that" --- the way Li-Ion packs are designed these days are for the long haul: http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1102736_durable-2012-chevrolet-volt-300000-miles-no-battery-loss

Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was the vast infrastructure that currently supports our gasoline powered cars. With multiple gigafactories-style plants coming online, and people slowly realizing what electric cars are capable of with their core tech, the tide is slowly turning. I'm a die hard "car guy", and even I took a dip in the market with my 2017 Volt. As someone who drives a ton for work, I can't wait to go 100% electric hopefully with a Model3. With the number of miles I drive, I went from gassing up a minimum of twice a week to now once ever 6 weeks, and it's an amazing feeling, totally worth the extra cost as well from a car price perspective. This is my opinion coming from someone who's owned 7.0L muscle cars, high revving rotaries, and other toys along the way.


It's only going to get cheaper and better as the months/years roll on. Exciting times I believe!
 
collegeboy69us said:
You have a pretty narrow view it seems.
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That's a very long-winded way to say that I'm right.

Electric versions of cars, all else equal, at present are more expensive, heavier, with reduced range, and poor resale value. I didn't say anything else, so you you can lay the strawman down, and 2025 is not that far away.

What I did say is that people often make outrageous unrealistic headlines to capture people's attention or promote a product, and that you should wait and see as time and time again the hype-machines prove to be just that... hype.

And no one has said that electric cars don't have potential, and yes I have replaced every power tool and landscaping tool in my house with electric (law mower, edger, chainsaw, hedger, you name it), because the tech finally advanced to the point that the advantages vs disadvantages of the tech paid off for my application.

Far too often people get on these "my side" and "your side" arguments, and abandon reason. You can still be pro-electric while saying that electric is an immature technology, and not likely to be completely replacing ICE in just 8 years. We don't even have a universal standard for charging vehicles, and building an infrastructure for rapid chargers takes time, especially when the tech keeps changing.
 
So when oil runs out what are we gonna charge them with? I'd rather see advancements in bio-fuels (ethonal/biodiesel)... Least those can come from renewable resources (i'm not saying electricty can't be produced this way (or other renewable ways)).

And on the note of diesels, I recently saw a diesel Chevy Cruze drive by my house... Only thing I heard was a slight turbo whistle, I couldn't believe how quiet it was.
 
Ducman69 said:
That's a very long-winded way to say that I'm right.

Electric versions of cars, all else equal, at present are more expensive, heavier, with reduced range, and poor resale value. I didn't say anything else, so you you can lay the strawman down, and 2025 is not that far away.

What I did say is that people often make outrageous unrealistic headlines to capture people's attention or promote a product, and that you should wait and see as time and time again the hype-machines prove to be just that... hype.

And no one has said that electric cars don't have potential, and yes I have replaced every power tool and landscaping tool in my house with electric (law mower, edger, chainsaw, hedger, you name it), because the tech finally advanced to the point that the advantages vs disadvantages of the tech paid off for my application.

Far too often people get on these "my side" and "your side" arguments, and abandon reason. You can still be pro-electric while saying that electric is an immature technology, and not likely to be completely replacing ICE in just 8 years. We don't even have a universal standard for charging vehicles, and building an infrastructure for rapid chargers takes time, especially when the tech keeps changing.
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{insert sarcasm} You just wait! You'll regret your words when we prove you wrong. The electric car will replace the ICE very, very soon (2050 shhhh), just like a lot of headlines read! We'll all be sitting here ready to say you were wrong... in 2050. Very, very soon we'll even have electric flying cars! {end sarcasm}

One thing about the resale value. It will only get worse for the people that bought electric cars now and in the past since their value will go down as batteries, and thus the cars, become cheaper.

I think your arguments are correct. For the common person that wants their money to go the furthest, it would be best to wait for the price to come down, the range to go up, the recharge stations to increase and to have more years to perfect the technology. If you are loaded and don't care about money, then knock yourself out on the newest, greatest things out there.
 
If the price was cheaper than the gas versions, people might actually buy them?
 
Hagrid said:
If the price was cheaper than the gas versions, people might actually buy them?
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With or without subsidies? lol

It is obviously the future though we will not be able to replace gasoline for every application. Anything with a huge engine in it (think ocean liners) or jet aircraft for instance. While I do love the burble of a nice V8 I would not mind at all driving a fully electric car as a daily. Not quite feasible yet - but getting there steadily.
 
Private_Ops said:
So when oil runs out what are we gonna charge them with? I'd rather see advancements in bio-fuels (ethonal/biodiesel)... Least those can come from renewable resources (i'm not saying electricty can't be produced this way (or other renewable ways)).

And on the note of diesels, I recently saw a diesel Chevy Cruze drive by my house... Only thing I heard was a slight turbo whistle, I couldn't believe how quiet it was.
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No, no, no to ethanol. Only 3 groups benefit from that: corn farmers, the lobbyists that are paid by the corn farmers, and politicians that score brownie points for forcing that crap into our fuel tanks. It's a net negative for energy production (you spend more energy growing and harvesting the crop, and distilling the grain, than you get from usable energy) and that will never change. We've already maximized efficiencies in fermentation process so we're not going to magically make it more efficient. It's got a lower energy per volume than gasoline so it causes MPG go down. And it's more caustic to the internals of the engine, fuel system, and exhaust system than gasoline is. Pisses me off every time I'm at the pump and I see the 'Contains 10% Ethanol' sticker. No ethanol.
 
The only reason for them existing currently, is subsidies.
We need totally different battery technology first.
 
Battery prices fall, consumers win, EVs get cheaper, and yet we are all here arguing semantics about why it shouldn't have happened. Fucking stupid.
 
Riptide_NVN said:
With or without subsidies? lol

It is obviously the future though we will not be able to replace gasoline for every application. Anything with a huge engine in it (think ocean liners) or jet aircraft for instance. While I do love the burble of a nice V8 I would not mind at all driving a fully electric car as a daily. Not quite feasible yet - but getting there steadily.
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I would love to have an electric vehicle for work. I only drive 10 miles 1 way. By cheaper I mean way cheaper, since it is better for the environment?
The oil companies won't let it happen. Just a dream!
 
The battery side of things has been maturing pretty rapidly over the last few years. Now we're starting to see the results.

I've always thought ammonia was a better solution than electric cars. Gas and diesel engines can be modified to use ammonia or ammonia/biodiesel blends. It's already widely used in agriculture. Reserve stockpiles could be generated and maintained cleanly using solar/wind power and distributed via pipelines. You'd need to fill up your tank twice as often, but the price could be cheap and stable.
 
EVs are destined to become cheaper for a plethora of reasons. One of the major ones, in my opinion, will be strong competition coming from smaller guys. See, developing an electric motor costs peanuts compared to an ICE, not to mention modern hybrid power units.

Now, it's not going to be exactly like PCs, because cars are regulated for good reasons, but it's going to get a lot cheaper - and viable - to produce a vehicle in a garage no matter what. Using off the shelve parts at that.

At least that's what I think.
 
TrailRunner said:
No, no, no to ethanol. Only 3 groups benefit from that: corn farmers, the lobbyists that are paid by the corn farmers, and politicians that score brownie points for forcing that crap into our fuel tanks. It's a net negative for energy production (you spend more energy growing and harvesting the crop, and distilling the grain, than you get from usable energy) and that will never change. We've already maximized efficiencies in fermentation process so we're not going to magically make it more efficient. It's got a lower energy per volume than gasoline so it causes MPG go down. And it's more caustic to the internals of the engine, fuel system, and exhaust system than gasoline is. Pisses me off every time I'm at the pump and I see the 'Contains 10% Ethanol' sticker. No ethanol.
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I benefit from E85. More power man. It's cheap race fuel.
 
Ducman69 said:
That's a very long-winded way to say that I'm right.

Electric versions of cars, all else equal, at present are more expensive, heavier, with reduced range, and poor resale value. I didn't say anything else, so you you can lay the strawman down, and 2025 is not that far away.

What I did say is that people often make outrageous unrealistic headlines to capture people's attention or promote a product, and that you should wait and see as time and time again the hype-machines prove to be just that... hype.

And no one has said that electric cars don't have potential, and yes I have replaced every power tool and landscaping tool in my house with electric (law mower, edger, chainsaw, hedger, you name it), because the tech finally advanced to the point that the advantages vs disadvantages of the tech paid off for my application.

Far too often people get on these "my side" and "your side" arguments, and abandon reason. You can still be pro-electric while saying that electric is an immature technology, and not likely to be completely replacing ICE in just 8 years. We don't even have a universal standard for charging vehicles, and building an infrastructure for rapid chargers takes time, especially when the tech keeps changing.
Click to expand...
anakin-skywalker-youre-either-with-us-or-against-us.jpg
 
Even without the subsidies it is hard to imagine the cost approaching MS109. E85 is what, $2/gal? MS109 is 5x the cost.
 
THRESHIN said:
There was a time when gas stations did not exist, everyone rode horses. Then the first cars came (or horseless carriage if you prefer) and they sucked.

As the technology matured, Society made a transition. It didn't happen overnight. And now here we are.

Electric cars are the same thing. There will be a transition time but it will happen. I think we will see gas stations install chargers when it becomes worth it. It's a logical transition.

There are clear reasons to switch to electric cars over the next decade give or take. I can definitely see electric cars becoming cheaper. Less moving parts than the engine, and yes batteries will become cheaper.

I've heard all the counter arguments and quite frankly it's a load of crap. Once we get better batteries it's problem solved.

Yes the gas companies will be a barrier, but I don't believe they will stop progress. The first car company that comes out with an affordable electric that is ahead of the competition enough for the masses to want will have a product worth a fortune. Simply put, at some point it will not be worth it to take payoffs.

I'm very excited for electrics. It will be nice to cut down my commuting bill and hopefully just charge at home. Time will tell.
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Not all a load of crap. Considering the 100 mile range (~average out there currently) my last trip to Chicago, from Southern California would take around 2 days longer. This is assuming a recharge time of 2 hours.

The range needs to be increased by quite a bit and either battery replacement or some type of fast charger needs to be implemented.
 
Ducman69 said:
If I had a dollar for every time I heard that... I could afford a prostitute and quit the Chryslers.
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Playing that clip, I am wondering what that background song is.....sounds catchy......

EDIT: Goddamn it.....I took a wild guess on it sounding like Hootie.
 
sadsteve said:
Not all a load of crap. Considering the 100 mile range (~average out there currently) my last trip to Chicago, from Southern California would take around 2 days longer. This is assuming a recharge time of 2 hours.
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How many people take trips like that on a weekly, yet alone monthly basis?

The last time I took a significant trip over 1500 miles I rented a car. Not only did I get something more comfortable than my daily driver, I was able to keep my insurance at a lower milage tier and that alone offset over half of the rental cost. When I was thinking about electric cars I admit thoughts like you raise caused me some anxiety until I realized I don't take such trips that often, and when I do even with gas cars it's still not worth it to drive my own vehicle.

Dealers are up in arms about Tesla and other electrics not because of issues around the sale of electric cars, but because they don't need hardly any maintenance unlike their ICE gas guzzling brethren. Dealers live off of oil changes and other maintenance, not new car sales.

You want to talk about significant market disruption... If companies like Tesla didn't have to also fight the expense of just being able to talk to potential customers in many jurisdictions in the US that would also affect not only cost but ways companies like Tesla could engage with the public. Some of the laws around car sales and dealership franchising are truly f-ed up.

Still the biggest problem are the battery costs and capacity. Tesla's gigafactory and the volume that the Model 3 will bring will be the catalyst to dramatically trigger change. Until the Model 3, upstarts like Tesla were a minor inconvenience to the traditional car makers. There weren't enough cars being made by Tesla to pose a serious threat. With the model 3, that changes. Once you see other companies start to shift their focus to compete and protect their flanks, all the angst in threads like this over costs will shift. Volume brings efficiency, and the first significant volume of all electric cars is about to happen.

The switch to electrics isn't going to happen over night, but I don't think it's going to take 20 years either. I would be shocked if in 10 years at least 1/3 of car owning households didn't have an all electric car. Especially in areas where commuting is common. I'm not ready for a new car yet (both of mine don't even have 100K on the clock and are only 14 and 18 years old) but I'm watching what ones are out there and I've also done a lot of thinking about the kinds of trips I go on with the whole range anxiety thing. What surprised me is there are very few times I would be inconvenienced by 150 mile range (where I could round trip and not have to worry about finding a charger mid trip), let alone 250 mile range. So when the time comes I'll probably go that direction.
 
Might cost less because they aren't worth as much in usage and practicality as a gas powered car.
 
I doubt 1/3 of households will have an all electric car 10 years out. I doubt 1/3 of households will purchase any new car in the next 10 years. People buy a lot of used cars. New cars are typically a luxury.
 
Sure, but used electrics are a sinkhole. Once the batteries start to drop capacity, you're looking at a huge expense to replace them. How many people are going to replace the batteries, THEN sell the car? Probably no-one. So on top of the car cost, you're looking at buying new batteries almost immediately. That's the downside of the current expense of the EV batteries. Once they come down a lot, it'll make a huge difference... but when they still cost more than an engine rebuild, it's hardly a motivator of used EV sales.
 
Elon, give me a call -- I'll test out a 3/4 ton 4WD Suburban size electric vehicle for you at no charge (no pun intended).
 
THRESHIN said:
Electric cars are the same thing. There will be a transition time but it will happen. I think we will see gas stations install chargers when it becomes worth it. It's a logical transition.
There are clear reasons to switch to electric cars over the next decade give or take. I can definitely see electric cars becoming cheaper. Less moving parts than the engine, and yes batteries will become cheaper.
I've heard all the counter arguments and quite frankly it's a load of crap. Once we get better batteries it's problem solved.
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Except you will still have the long charging times.

I can fill up my gas tank in less than 5 minutes. Even the fastest charging electric car (Tesla) will only charge the battery half way in 30 minutes.
If gas station add chargers, they better put them in a different line than the gas pumps. I can see many angry people when they have to wait 30 minutes or more for the car in front of them to charge their battery.
 
DocNo said:
The switch to electrics isn't going to happen over night, but I don't think it's going to take 20 years either. I would be shocked if in 10 years at least 1/3 of car owning households didn't have an all electric car. Especially in areas where commuting is common.
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Many people have no way to charge an electric car at home, either they live in an apartment (no plug in the car port) or park on the street (charging would be slow with a 100 foot extension cord).

There are lots of reasons I doubt I'll buy an electric car over the next 10 years.

1. Limited range. Even tough a 100 mile range would cover 85% of my driving, what about the other 15%? Renting a car would be too much of a hassle, especially when you have an unplanned emergency. A few years ago we went somewhere an hour away. Had a medical emergency and I ended up in the hospital for a few days. If we where driving an electric car, the wife would have had to find some place to charge it. Instead we still had half a tank of gas in the car when we finally got home days later.

2. I have yet to see an electric car with a spare tire. I've had too many flats over the years to ever trust driving a car without a spare tire.

3. Long charging time. Takes too long to charge if you need to take a longer trip. Let me know when you can charge a 600 mile range battery in 5 minutes. (my Camry hybrid gets about 700 miles on a full tank of gas)

4. Electric rate here in Southern California are so high, I can drive a Hybrid (even at $3/gallon gas) for about the same cost of charging an electric car at home. To the people who thing we just need faster charging, you should look into what retail charging stations charge per KW (much more expensive than you pay at home).

5. Electric cars tend to be too small because they have to reduce weight to increase the range. Tired of seeing reviews comparing a Leaf to a midsized car. How about comparing the electric car to a similar sized gas car or hybrid.

Most people would be better off with a hybrid. Quick refueling, low cost to operate, and good range. Some even have a spare tire (like my Camry).
 
Nanogrip said:
Might cost less because they aren't worth as much in usage and practicality as a gas powered car.
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With improvements in battery cost will also come large improvements in battery capacity. The batteries will either increase storage capacity on a volume/weight basis or you'll be able to afford to slap in more of the same similar to current tech batteries since they'll cost less.

Those zinc batteries that were mentioned several weeks ago for instance could easily provide the cost savings and capacity increase that the article is describing if they take off.

https://arstechnica.com/science/201...uld-compete-with-your-favorite-rechargeables/

Since its produced with a water based emulsion it should be easy to make lots of them within a few years. Only issue seems to be electrolyte loss right now, we'll probably have to wait a while before we hear of it in production. Took several years just to get saltwater + manganese oxide batteries into full production for instance and those were also quite simple to make.
 
nutzo said:
Except you will still have the long charging times.
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Recharge times will improve too.

No it probably won't be as fast as a gas fill up but you probably won't need to wait hours either. And you won't need to recharge every day either if they can get the capacity up just like most don't refuel their car every day.
 
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