The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Electric cars remain expensive: manufacturers drop hopes for cheap batteries

2022-07-05T10:17:50.733Z


Electric cars remain expensive: will the boom collapse soon? Created: 07/05/2022Updated: 07/05/2022 12:03 p.m By: Marcus Efler Actually, electric cars are supposed to get cheaper every year. But high prices for batteries prevent that - and thus endanger the boom of the Stromer. Update from July 5, 2022, 12:00 p.m.: If the prices for electric cars actually remain high, the interest in them, whi


Electric cars remain expensive: will the boom collapse soon?

Created: 07/05/2022Updated: 07/05/2022 12:03 p.m

By: Marcus Efler

Actually, electric cars are supposed to get cheaper every year.

But high prices for batteries prevent that - and thus endanger the boom of the Stromer.

Update from July 5, 2022, 12:00 p.m.:

If the prices for electric cars actually remain high, the interest in them, which has just skyrocketed, could quickly evaporate again.

At least that's what Arnaud Deboeuf According to, Head of Production at the Stellantis car group (including Opel, Peugeot, Fiat) predicts.

"If electric cars don't get cheaper, the market will collapse," said the top manager of the Bloomberg news agency: "It's a big challenge."

Production costs would have to be reduced by 40 percent to avoid the negative scenario.

But that's not exactly what it looks like in view of the continuing high prices for batteries, which are still the most expensive component in electric cars.

Electric cars remain expensive: will the boom collapse soon?

First report from June 7, 2022, 3:36 p.m.: Bruges (France)

– Brave new world: At some point, everyone will just whiz around in clean, quiet electric cars.

And, best of all, they hardly pay anything for their individual mobility.

Because vehicles and electricity are getting cheaper and cheaper.

Volkswagen boss Herbert Diess predicted that 100 kilometers in an e-mobile could only cost one euro in the future.

Electric cars remain expensive: manufacturers drop hopes for cheap batteries

But that was before the Ukraine war and inflation, especially in energy.

In the meantime, VW is also rowing back: "Mobility is becoming more expensive," fears Hildegard Wortmann, board member for sales.

Of course, one hope has remained so far: that electric cars will become cheaper and cheaper over the next few years as they become more widespread and technology is optimized – until they are no longer more expensive than comparable combustion engines.

Despite the sinking and then completely expiring environmental bonus, a buyer would then have to invest no more in a Stromer than in a conventional car, or even less.

Electromobility will remain expensive for the time being.

(Iconic image) © Manuel Geisser/Imago

Electric cars remain expensive: raw materials as price drivers

This optimism is mainly based on the expectation that the prices for rechargeable batteries will continue to fall.

They currently make up almost half of the production costs for an electric car.

But now a high-ranking manager from the battery industry is dropping exactly this hope.

Yann Vincent, head of the important battery supplier Automotive Cells Company (ACC), does not see any cost relaxation in the foreseeable future “if prices for raw materials such as lithium or nickel remain at the current level.

Because they drive up the cost of electric cars.”

also read

"That's antisocial": Tesla hangs on the charging station for eight weeks

Mercedes: Hybrid battery gives up the ghost - exchange costs more than the car is worth

The gap between the prices for electric vehicles and those for combustion engines “could widen.

That would not be good," Vincent told the "Handelsblatt".

In fact, according to other experts, lithium is becoming scarcer – and therefore more expensive.

The manager predicts that demand for electric cars will increase sharply: as a result of the CO2 regulation, more than two-thirds of new European cars will be fully electric by the end of the decade. 

You can find even more exciting automotive topics in the free newsletter, which you can subscribe to right here.

Electric cars remain expensive: there are not enough raw material mines

The cost of battery raw materials, which includes nickel (although Tesla is increasingly banning it), could only come down if there were more mines to mine.

"But it will be a long time before these new mining projects for nickel and lithium are finally implemented," the "Handelsblatt" quotes the battery boss: "That should be the case in 2025 or 2026." Until then really the prices for batteries and finally electric cars fall, so many years would pass.

Source: merkur

All tech articles on 2022-07-05

You may like

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.