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Battery powered cars will soon be cheaper to buy than conventional gasoline ones, offering immediate savings to drivers, new research shows.
Automakers from Renault to Tesla have long touted the cheaper fuel and running costs of electric cars that helps to displace the higher upfront prices that drivers pay when they buy the zero-emission vehicles.
Now, Bloomberg New Energy Finance sees electric cars becoming cheaper than conventional vehicles by 2030.
It also suggests that falling battery costs will mean electric vehicles will also be cheaper to buy in the US and Europe as soon as 2025.
Batteries currently account for about half the cost of electric vehicles (EVs), and their prices will fall by about 77 per cent between 2016 and 2030, the London-based researcher said.
Analyst Colin McKerracher 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. After that it gets even more compelling.”
Renault, maker of the Zoe electric car, predicts total ownership costs of EVs will by the early 2020s equal conventional internal combustion engine vehicles (known in the trade as ICE), mainly thanks to heavier regulations on emission-based vehicles.
