Cost of Electric Vehicles Will Soon Rival Gasoline Counterparts

A team of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, led by Venkat Viswanathan, developed a model to track the cost of components of electric vehicle batteries to understand the total cost and predict changes. "At some point, probably sooner than you expect, the price of an all-electric vehicle will fall far enough to equal the cost of an equivalent gasoline vehicle," writes Dan Gerino. Gerino reports that this equivalent cost (a $100 per kilowatt-hour battery price) could come as soon as 2023 and certainly by 2025. As of 2019, the kilowatt-hour battery price was as low as $156 as compared to over $1,000 kilowatt-hour battery price in the early 2010s. 

"Viswanathan said cost parity will arrive first for small sedans that now sell for $30,000 or less. It will take longer for automakers to develop electric trucks and SUVs that cost about the same as similar gasoline models," reports Gerino. Given the extra towing power of SUVs, batteries made for larger vehicles amount to greater costs. The future addition of new electric SUV models should transform the market in which EVs account for only 2% of new vehicles sold.