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How Cheap Can Electric Vehicles Get?

• nosuchthing 11y ago
  An addon kit for a bicycle is currently around ~$400-$1500. With more cities rolling out ebike stations things are looking good. http://www.monoprice.com/pages/ebikekit http://www.monoprice.com/pages/ebikekit
• donretag 11y ago
  Subsidies must have some effect on the price. As the government subsidies for electric vehicles diminishes, the overall price diminishes as well.
• ninju 11y ago
  The author should also show a decline line on the prices of the average (and lowest cost) cars on his graph because I am sure the cost will come down for all types of cars
• superuser2 11y ago
  Don't forget that EV ownership effectively requires land ownership. If you rent your parking space, good luck getting a charger installed. If you park on the street, good luck convincing the city to install more than a small handful of token EV spots. A house in the suburbs with a garage that I could do electrical work on would account for the vast majority of the cost if I wanted an EV.
  • Grishnakh 11y ago
    That's a problem right now, but it's solvable. Cities that wanted to push EV adoption could easily pass a law requiring landlords to install chargers, and of course the city could install their own chargers for street parking. Obviously this won't happen everywhere, so some cities will be much better places to have an EV than others. Don't forget that as EVs become more popular, landlords who are EV-friendly will do better than those who aren't.
• kozak 11y ago
  So, can an electric car (not counting the cost of the battery) be realistically cheaper than a gasoline one within the next 5-10 years? I know that the number of moving parts is smaller, but these parts that are there are kind of higher tech.
  • bagels 11y ago
    The battery costs are all that prevent electric cars from being cheaper.
    • boredpudding 11y ago
      I found this: > Bereisa based his analysis on the base Model 3 being offered with a 60 kWh battery, like the Bolt, and on Tesla achieving a cost of ~$190/kWh. He estimates that Tesla’s current battery pack cost (cells, casing, cooling and entire pack) is at $260/kWh, while GM’s is at $215/kWh. GM’s cells and battery pack are manufactured by its partner LG Chem. On Elektrek.co Let's say you need a 50 kWh battery to have a usable range, and it costs $ 190/kWh, then the battery will cost $ 9,500 dollar. And that is within the next 2 years. So.. it's going down extremely fast.
    • rhino369 11y ago
      Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?
  • hvidgaard 11y ago
    A modern ICE is extremely high tech. The tech used for electric motors and controllers are so simple and prevalent that they're surely cheaper than a complex beast an ICE is. Battery is most likely the most expensive component of an EV.
    • bagels 11y ago
      Combustion engines are steadily increasing in technology too, due to emissions laws. Batteries are the single most expensive parts of electric cars for now. It was recently revealed that Tesla's Model 3 batteries will cost Tesla around $11,400 ($190/kwh * 60kwh) to make. This is likely much cheaper than current, as they expect the Gigafactory to bring their unit costs down. I agree that this is most likely the single most expensive part of the car, and more expensive than many combustion engines. http://electrek.co/2016/04/26/tesla-model-3-battery-pack-cost-kwh/ http://electrek.co/2016/04/26/tesla-model-3-battery-pack-cos...
• PinguTS 11y ago
  This article has lots of false assumptions. To phrase it positively, the article ignores a lot of facts. EVs are simpler devices than gasoline-powered vehicles. They have a smaller number of parts, making them easier to assemble. At similar scale to gas vehicles, electric vehicles should indeed be lower cost to built. In addition, EVs have many fewer moving parts (in the engine and drivetrain in particular) than internal combustion vehicles. That further means lower construction cost for the most complex and costly part of a vehicle, and far lower maintenance cost. While it is true, the engine and drive train has fewer parts, when I reduce it to motor and battery. But in fact every EV has a gear, including the Tesla. Yes, this gear is much simpler, but it is there and even runs with oil that has to be replaced every 100.000 miles like in every other car. The battery is as complex as an engine itself. Because you need to measure lots of sensors values and to control that it will not explode and not wear down to fast. Every battery, including the one in the Tesla, has a dedicated heating and cooling system just for the battery within the battery. Then also lots of parts in car are the very same like brakes, steering, air condition, windows, and so. Remember that a current car is about 30% software and will be more in future. But there is only 1 engine control unit. The most of the parts are other things to control safety or personal comfort. Electric vehicles, today, have lower total costs per mile than equivalent gasoline-powered vehicles, due to lower energy costs of electricity and the lower maintenance costs. That neglects the fact, that most of the maintenance costs are not engine related. Like the brakes have to be regularly checked. It neglects the fact, that a battery will wear out sometimes between 3 to 6 years and has to be replaced, which is a huge cost related issue. The guarantee Tesla has, does not help, because you will pay for that guarantee otherwise.
  • woodpanel 11y ago
    This article has lots of false assumptions. I agree. In fact, this article is so preconcieved reading it's last sentence felt like: 'scrolling, scrolling to continue reading after the ads... aaaand... where is the reasoning-part and the criterion-part of this piece?' Considering the article's lack of substance and the subsequent unquestioning cheering here on HN, this article delivers less enlightenment on the future of EV than it is a statement about the bias on HN towards EV. And probably about the bias in the valley as well.
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• dsfyu404ed 11y ago
  A cheap used economy car will still have the lowest cost per mile for a very long time.... When you factor purchase price into the equation gas vehicles win by a long ways since you need X years of EV economy cars on the market before you can get an X year old used EV. EV's will need to fill the same market segment as today's Chevy Aveos and Toyota Yarii (plural of Yaris?) for a decade or more before they're competitive in price at the bottom chunk of the used car market. E.g. if a 2030 Civic EV is price competitive with a 2030 Civic gasoline then it'll be 2045 or later before they're both competing for the "cheapest cost per mile." Theoretically, the EV wins that hands down because when purchase price is so small the operating cost dominates the cost per mile (less maintenance, cheaper gas). The problem with that is that with current tech you won't be able to find a 15yo EV without trashed batteries, so the hypothetical $2k 2030 gas civic vs $2k 2030 EV civic comparison goes out the window because the EV needs batteries replaced or will need them replaced soon and you can't exactly buy used batteries at the junkyard (they wear out) so you'll need to shell out big bucks for that new replacement battery, and I'd bet that whatever a new battery costs in 2045 will still buy a heck of a lot of gas and maintenince... "But storage tech will improve and batteries will be able to withstand a bajillion cycles without replacement" Sure, but why would the OEMs put a big battery that's good to 1,000,000mi in a car when they can get away with one that's good to half that, reduce cost, weight, etc TD;DR, EVs will be cheaper soon the same way cars will all be driving themselves next year.
  • madaxe_again 11y ago
    You assume a constant price for gasoline, which is a bold assumption, given that the oil markets are currently gyrating wildly, and have been for some time - we're likely to see prices at the pump go up by orders of magnitude over a relatively short timescale, which will provide a big push towards EV adoption, and will drive people away from older vehicles which guzzle gas. No, it isn't going to be overnight, but like most transitions, it's going to happen far more quickly than you think. In 1905 people thought that most people would still be using horses in a century, that cars were just too expensive and niche, that horses were good enough. Horses were obsolete within 15 years of private automobiles being a thing - by 1920 more freight was hauled and more passenger-miles were travelled by internal combustion than horse, in the US. EVs have been around for seven years, in a "real" form, give or take, their adoption rate is similar to that of the original gasoline automobiles when compared to horses. I give it seven more years before they're dominant. I'm also putting my money where my mouth is, and I've been buying up nice dirt cheap houses on busy, noisy, polluted roads. They'll be nice, not so cheap houses on less busy, quiet, clean roads in fifteen years.
• pmontra 11y ago
  A car sharing service in Milan, Italy, is using small two seater electric cars from China. Prompted by this article I finally investigated and found them at http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/China-eec-l7e-80-electric-car_60432063640.html http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/China-eec-l7e-80-elect... They're quoted with a maximum price of $8000. They're definitely made for driving inside a city. Not very good suspensions (don't drive too fast on cobble stones) but good torque (easily beats a gas car out of a green light). 120 km of autonomy, which is good enough in the typical European city center, apparently 80 km/h max speed, which again is more than enough there. Very easy to park. More important matters: Would I survive a crash? They're very tiny... How long to recharge? Operating costs? I'm paying 19 Eurocents per minute, all included. Do they compete with gas cars? The other two car sharing companies in Milan have gas cars and cost 25 and 29 cents per minute. I prefer the electric one: it's a shakier ride but cheaper and more fun because of the torque.
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  • arethuza 11y ago
    "Would I survive a crash? They're very tiny..." Isn't the real test how likely you are to be injured/killed per mile driven? Larger vehicles like SUVs might be safer if you are in an accident but that could be offset if they are more likely to actually be in an accident.
    • JoeAltmaier 11y ago
      Its pretty much assumed the rate of accident is proportional to the driving miles. Does that comment mean, because of the limited range, electric vehicles have smaller exposure to accident risk? I guess a bicycle would do even better then.
      • ZeroGravitas 11y ago
        It is true that the more people who cycle, the lower the number of transport related deaths and injuries. Only some of these effects, e.g. less deaths from air pollution, apply to EVs though.
• gregwtmtno 11y ago
  The author believes that electric cars will be better for ride sharing services than gasoline cars because the cost per ride is cheaper. I'm not sure I agree. Unlike private cars, shared cars are in use many more hours per day and charging time versus gasoline refill time should be considered.
  • icebraining 11y ago
    Three years ago Tesla already had a robot that could replace a battery in 90s: https://www.teslamotors.com/videos/battery-swap-event https://www.teslamotors.com/videos/battery-swap-event
    • dragontamer 11y ago
      Yeah. Except no one can figure out how the system would work. The Roadster's battery pack costs $28,000. The Tesla Model S's battery pack is expected to cost $10,000+ AFTER the efficiency of the Gigafactory in 2020. Swapping out a $10,000+ part and sharing it between cars is going to be a major, MAJOR business / economic question. How do you do it fairly? How do you ensure that the quality of the battery remains the same? Can people cheat the system?
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      • misthop 11y ago
        In the sharing paradigm it is Tesla, or a large fleet service, who owns all the vehicles. In that case they have their own battery swapping sites and they own all of the batteries. Fairness only come into play if you are assuming private ownership of the vehicles.
  • edent 11y ago
    That's true enough. But rapid chargers can "fill" an electric vehicle in 30 minutes. A typical London taxi driver does around 200 miles per day. So, depending on usage patterns, that's a recharge over 30 minute lunch break - and maybe a short top-up every time they go to the loo. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/transport/10572289/New-electric-black-cab-could-save-drivers-200-per-week.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/transport/10...
• dovdov 11y ago
  So you get an electric model of the same car. It costs about double. Even if fuel prices double/triple, you can easy fill up at least for 10 years off the difference. Now, ask yourself how often do you replace your car. :)
  • epistasis 11y ago
    The question is what is the lifespan of the car, and the total cost of ownership over that period, not how long a single person owns a car.
    • dovdov 11y ago
      Well, you have to replace the battery after about 10 years. And yes, maybe the resale value is more important.
• sickbeard 11y ago
  How are EV's disruptive technology?
• mark-r 11y ago
  Such an interesting premise, such a flawed assumption... An electric car shares most of its parts with a gas one, so you can't expect any savings from economies of scale there. Going back to the Model T for the cost curve is just laughable.
  • epistasis 11y ago
    An electric car has far fewer parts, simplifying the supply chain. Also the battery in an EV is a massive amount of the cost, and will be dropping on its own curve. I've been reading this guy for years, and complaints like yours are typical, but Naam has been far more right than his critics in the time I've been watching. If he feels this is a conservative estimate then I believe him. He didn't show his full work on why that's reasonable, but I believe it would stand up to scrutiny.
    • mark-r 11y ago
      It's certainly believable that an electric car could someday cost less than a gas one. My only beef is in the methodology of calculating the magnitude and timing of the difference, which has a lot to do with whether this will be a disruptive technology or not. If he's publishing some silly analogy instead of his actual reasoning, then he should expect it to be dismissed out of hand.
  • mikeyouse 11y ago
    > An electric car shares most of its parts with a gas one Definitely depends on how you qualify 'most'. An electric car has nearly none of the mechanical complexity of an ICE car. Look at the engine bay and undercarriage of a typical internal combustion car: http://i.imgur.com/uDxSsR2.jpg http://i.imgur.com/uDxSsR2.jpg Gas tank, fuel lines, transmission, engine, drive shaft, spark plugs / distributor cap, muffler, exhaust system, fuel pump, engine, air intake, turbo/super chargers if necessary, oil pumps / reservoirs, etc. -- many hundreds of parts can be shaved off of full electric cars. I'm firmly in the camp that Tesla is going to have a much more difficult time that people predict in shipping a mass-market car, but that doesn't change the fact that it's much easier to build an electric car than an ICE one.
• grandalf 11y ago
  When you buy a car in the US, most of what you pay for is fancy molded plastic and attractive sheet metal work, cleverly organized by the manufacturer into trim level "tiers" intended to create maximum perceived value. The package is then financed or leased with incentive financing and the sights are set on getting you to replace it after 2-4 years whether it needs to be replaced or not. I think a 6 passenger mini-van could be manufactured for the US market (electric or gasoline) for under $8K if all the frills were removed. This would entail simple, rubber bench seats, no radio (just a plastic bracket to snap in a smart-phone, which would also be used as a speedometer, and the smallest allowable engine. I'd like to see an open hardware platform for car chassis, perhaps modeled after a successful platform like some of the 1980s Toyota trucks, designed to use abundantly available OEM and 3rd party parts. Of course, self-driving electric cars might leap into reality before any of this is relevant, but once we stop owning our own vehicle, firms can focus on cost cutting for their fleets in ways that will usher in similar platform-style improvements that are difficult when people pick cars for aesthetic and emotional reasons.
  • ljf 11y ago
    I like this idea, but as someone that recently survived a fairly nasty car accident at less than 60mph, I'd want to see what safety measures you also got for that money. Nothing makes me more happy than that I had the accident in my volvo. It was a decently priced 2nd hand car, but it's safety features are what saved me.
    • grandalf 11y ago
      Indeed. It would be interesting to see what kind of star-rating could be achieved using inexpensive technology. Things like crumple zones and steel reinforced panels are cheap, things like AWD traction control are somewhat more expensive. In terms of overall platform cost, though, I'd expect it to be possible to design a very safe car without increasing the price significantly, perhaps somewhat at the expense of aesthetics.
      • kozak 11y ago
• akgerber 11y ago
  'Disruptive' means something worse and cheaper than eventually overtakes its more better, expensive competitors, like microcomputers versus mainframes. Which makes the current market-winning electric cars, which are generally both more expensive and better than gasoline cars, not disruptive: http://www.vox.com/2016/4/12/11394260/tesla-not-disruptive http://www.vox.com/2016/4/12/11394260/tesla-not-disruptive
• martythemaniak 11y ago
  I was thinking about the same thing a few months ago, so I wrote a blog post, which then turned into a little calculator. http://martin.drashkov.com/2015/09/how-cheap-can-autonomous-cars-get.html http://martin.drashkov.com/2015/09/how-cheap-can-autonomous-... Paying 15-20 cents per kilometre to ride in an autonomous taxi seems achievable. This means that public transit could become slightly cheaper and self-sustaining. At this rate, it also means people will likely be travelling a lot more, so maybe the price will go up again because of congestion charges.
• mizchief2 11y ago
  The Dumbass governments around the world are shutting down coal plants in favor of more expensive "greener" technologies driving up the price of electricity, while producing electricity is a fraction of the pollution cars make. Whereas if we focused on producing as much electricity as cheaply as possible, the transition to electric cars would happen faster and cut more pollution overall. Another example of how the market can react to problems faster and more efficiently than central planners.
• LoSboccacc 11y ago
  today I got married. according to projection, in a month I'll have 30 wives
  • taneq 11y ago
    Unlikely. You weigh a kilogram more after the reception, in a month you'll be 30kg overweight so you have to take that into account (unless you set your survey period to end mid-reception when you're at your funniest after a few beers, so your d(sense-of-humour)/d(weight) remains above 1. ;)
  • philovivero 11y ago
    Do you have the pre-marriage pipeline filled? If not, you might want to include that in your projections.
• JulianMorrison 11y ago
  I confidently predict, in my lifetime, - Nearly all cars will be electric. - Nearly all cars will be self driving. - Nearly all cars will be Uber, or something like it. - Exceptions to the above will be owned by the same sort of people who currently own Ford model Ts. They will be lovingly maintained, proudly exhibited, and illegal to drive on the public highway.
  • aninhumer 11y ago
    >- Nearly all cars will be Uber, or something like it. I'm not entirely convinced this will happen. Certainly owning a car will be a luxury, but it will be an affordable one (since we can clearly already afford it). I think there are enough advantages to car ownership, like instant availability, and personalised space, that mean many people will still choose to own a car instead of taking taxis.
    • Grishnakh 11y ago
      It probably will depend a lot on where they live. The less dense their location, the more popular personally-owned cars will remain. Uber is great and all, but if you have to wait 15 minutes for an Uber ride to arrive, that's not very appealing compared to just hopping in your car and going. But if you live in a much more dense area and an Uber ride will arrive within a couple of minutes, that's a lot more doable, and saves you from the trouble and expense of maintenance, parking, etc.
  • djrogers 11y ago
    >illegal to drive on the public highway. Model T's are not illegal to drive today... And you've got a lot more public sentiment to overcome and a LOT more cars to replace than you think if you believe all of this will happen in the next 50 years.
    • JulianMorrison 11y ago
      As with film cameras, internal combustion cars have a long logistical tail that is highly dependent on the continued existence of the current volume of use. So when electric cars start squeezing them out, gas stations and repair garages will start to disappear, prices will go up for fuel and parts. Poor people with junker gasoline cars they really don't want to replace will be driving longer to find fuel and sooner or later will be driven to either convert their car or sell it for scrap. The only demographic that will be able to afford to run them will be moneyed enthusiasts. Once they effectively disappear from the roads (and the voting booth) the government will ban them. I expect that taxis and trucks will be mandated self-driving before cars will, because the safety upside will be obvious and huge, and the government is used to meddling in those industries. Seeing the results of that, there will be a sustained public pressure to mandate it for cars, with each accident splashed on the news and reporters saying "if only". As above, they'll first become rare and then banned.
• Shivetya 11y ago
  When they perfect the fuel cells stack technologies then electric cars will get cheaper. The issue with batteries is their power to weight ratio is not good. Who wants 400kg of batteries added to the mass of every car? BMW did show the direction the market will go to overcome that weight, composites for the rest of the car. Aluminum was good when it came about but composites are the only future. I do think the 100 mile range city car is a good opportunity to exploit provided they get it to city car sizes (read: Smart) and make it cheap that its such a viable alternative you cannot say no. In the US this would be 10k to 12k new pricing but specifically they would always be leased which would further increase affordability. The key to acceptance is getting people to accept a smaller package single purpose vehicle
• jhoechtl 11y ago
  Down to the sum of the prices of its components.
• frankus 11y ago
  It may seem like a minor nitpick, but the title should be "How Cheap Can Electric Cars Get?". It's a bit like equating "Digital Camera" with "DSLR", and ignoring camera phones as a source of disruption.
• Animats 11y ago
  Auto internal combustion engines aren't that expensive to make. A base Ford engine cost about $100 to make in the 1980s. Today's cars have more cost in the electronics than in the powertrain. The Tata Nano, the world's cheapest car, originally cost about $1500. But Tata discovered that the versions with more features sold better. It also flunked even basic crash tests.
• jopython 11y ago
  The recharge time will be a major factor in EV adoption. Currently it takes a couple or so minutes to fully fill a gas tank. I will wait until Battery charging tech gets there.