Why are electric cars so expensive, and when will they become more affordable? These are questions Electrifying.com readers frequently ask, and Professor Peter Wells is a good person to supply some of the answers. He’s Cardiff Business School’s Centre for Automotive Industry Research director, so has a good a handle on battery electric vehicle future trends.
Ask him why electric vehicles generally cost more to buy than their petrol or diesel equivalents, and he’ll suggest a number of reasons.“EVs are not as far down the development curve as petrol or diesel cars, which have had 100 plus years to perfect the technology. They’ve had a good run,” he said.
Although electric cars have been around for as long as internal combustion engined ones, Professor Wells said that it’s only recently that there has been a commercial impetus to develop the technology that makes them work.
“Developing battery chemistry technology has only been an area of interest for the past 10-15 years, and there’s a lot more innovation to come. So, electric cars are not as well developed (as ICE models), but that means there’s a lot more room for improvement in the years ahead,” he said.
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