When Will Electric Cars Go Mainstream? It May Be Sooner Than You Think
A new report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a research group, suggests
that the price of plug-in cars is falling much faster than expected, spurred by cheaper batteries and aggressive policies promoting zero-emission vehicles in China and Europe.
Exxon Mobil, which is studying the threat that electric cars could pose to its business model, still expects
that plug-in vehicle sales will grow slowly, to just 10 percent of new sales in the United States by 2040, with little impact on global oil use.
Between 2025 and 2030, the group predicts, plug-in vehicles will become cost competitive with traditional
petroleum-powered cars, even without subsidies and even before taking fuel savings into account.
As a result, the Bloomberg report warns that plug-in vehicles may have a difficult time making inroads in dense urban areas and
that infrastructure bottlenecks may slow the growth of electric vehicles after 2040.
Governments could scale back their incentives before plug-in vehicles become
fully competitive — many states are already beginning to tax electric cars.
