Affordable e-cars: a pathway towards a more sustainable mobility?
In the realm of efforts towards a more sustainable way of living, the automotive industry can be considered as one of the main drivers. From today’s perspective, the development of the first globally successful electric vehicle (EV) around the late 2000s by Tesla can be seen as the cornerstone of electromobility. Since then, several other renowned car manufacturers, e.g., General Motors, BMW, and Volkswagen, to name a few, have started building their own EV’s in order to initiate this paradigm shift in mobility.
Despite the ongoing progress made by the manufacturers, it still took some time for the EV to become more and more popular. Following the trend in electric cars from the global EV outlook 2024 report of the International Energy Agency (IEA) [1], a steady growth in the electric car stock can be inferred for the decade 2013–2023, most of which can be attributed to China, the US, and Europe (Figure 1).
Even though the electric car stock in Europe has considerably grown over the past ten years (11.2 Mio in 2023 compared to ~0.1 Mio in 2013), its distribution by country is still quite heterogeneous. According to a recent study [2], in which the latest 2022 data from Eurostat was analyzed, Norway has among the European countries the highest percentage of electric vehicles on their roads with about 20 % (Figure 2). In the second and third place come the other two Scandinavian countries, Denmark and Sweden. Their percentage, however, is substantially lower, of about 4 % (Figure 2).
Even though some of the above listed countries have a high income, the study mentions that one reason for the relatively low percentages may be ascribed to the still high purchase price. Taking Germany as one of the leading European economies as an example, the average price for an electric car was around 57’200 € (61’600 US-$) at the end of 2023 [3]. This amount is about one third higher compared to the average price of a new passenger car as of 2022 [4], and about 10 % higher than the average gross salary that is reported with 51’900 € / year for Germany [5].
A plan for making electric cars more affordable has been announced by several manufacturers, mainly in order to withstand the increasing competition from Chinese manufacturers, such as BYD, whose electric car prices for their domestic market are in the region of 10’000 US-$ [6]. Noteworthy are hereby the announcements of Tesla [7] and Volkswagen [8] for producing low-cost car models in the range of 20’000 to 25’000 €. However, it is still unclear if and to what extent this will happen, especially since Tesla has repeatedly revised this plan. In the best possible scenario, the year 2025 was targeted. Volkswagen on the other hand, announced their world premiere of low-cost EV’s for 2027.
Despite the current trend, however, there are other factors that can critically determine whether EV’s will be the main driver towards a sustainable mobility. One factor are the advances in battery technology that involve continuing efforts towards improving EV batteries, which are mainly based upon lithium-ion batteries. On the other hand, other environmental-friendly alternatives to classic gasoline and diesel cars are also emerging, e.g., hydrogen cars. Given this, it remains to be seen what resulting effect all these factors are going to have on the sustainable mobility of the future.
Sources
[1] Global electric car stock, 2013–2023 — Charts — Data & Statistics — IEA
[2] Which European countries are using electric vehicles the most? — Driving Instructors Association
[3] Average price of electric cars rises to €52,700 in Germany | Clean Energy Wire
[4] More and older cars in Germany (dbresearch.com)
[5] Durchschnittsgehalt in Deutschland: So hoch ist es (handelsblatt.com)
[6] BYD electric cars’ price is low — but is that actually a good thing? (techhq.com)
[7] Tesla to build 25,000-euro car in Germany — source | Reuters
[8] Volkswagen to develop low-cost electric car to tackle Chinese rivals | Reuters
