Friday 20 February 2015

EV to cost less than ICE within a decade

CleanTechnica.com: Within the next decade, the cost of electric cars will equal or undercut ICE automobiles, according to Deutsche Bank analyst Rod Lache. This downward movement in costs will “serve as a catalyst for significant expansion” of electric car sales.

Lache made these comments in a note sent to his clients. According to Lache, there are two factors that could eliminate the cost gap. Quartz describes these two factor as follows:

The first is that battery prices are expected to drop by more than half to $100 per kilowatt hour—not because of a scientific leap, but due to engineering improvements and economies of scale, particularly at Tesla’s “gigafactory.” The second factor is that combustion engines will get a lot more expensive, Lache says. US gasoline efficiency standards, which require that light vehicle fleets average 54.5 miles a gallon by 2025, will incur added costs of $2,000 to $2,600 per vehicle. That will raise the total cost of a typical drive train—an engine, transmission, and fuel and exhaust system—to $7,000 to $7,600 per vehicle in the United States, he writes.

As for electric car costs, Lache says that using the $100 per kilowatt hour cost that Deutsche Bank expects, to see within the next decade, a 47 kilowatt-hour battery pack would cost only $4,700. Add in electric motor cost and you’ve got a complete powertrain for ~ $6,000, claims Lache.