Electric Cars Could Be Cheaper Than Internal Combustion by 2030

[OKIsItJustMe]

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/607924/electric-cars-could-be-cheaper-than-internal-combustion-by-2030/
Electric Cars Could Be Cheaper Than Internal Combustion by 2030

Tesla gets the headlines, but big battery factories are being built all over the world, driving down prices.

by Michael Reilly May 23, 2017

According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, global battery production is forecast to more than double between now and 2021. The expansion is in turn driving prices down, good news both for the budding electric-car industry and for energy companies looking to build out grid-scale storage to back up renewable forms of energy.

While Tesla gets tons of attention for its “gigafactories”—one in Nevada that will produce batteries, and another in New York that will produce solar panels—the fact is, the company has a lot of battery-building competition

Exhibit A is a new battery plant in Kamenz, Germany, run by Accumotive. The half-billion-euro facility broke ground on Monday with a visit from German chancellor Angela Merkel and will supply batteries to its parent company, Daimler, which is betting heavily on the burgeoning electric-vehicle market.

But the lion’s share of growth is expected to be in Asia. BYD, Samsung, LG, and Panasonic (which has partnered with Tesla) are all among the world’s top battery producers, and nine of the world’s largest new battery factories are under construction in China (paywall), according to Benchmark Minerals.

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