03. April 2013 · Categories: Politics

Electric cars are something that many want to replace the combustion engine ones, but they are currently still quite expensive. Tesla provides for their models a very good indication of the cost for the battery: the upgrade from a 60 kWh battery to a 85 kWh costs $10000, meaning that the base battery sets you back $24000. They limit the warranty to 125000 miles, so the battery cost is 19.2 cents/mile. A modern combustion engine will do 40 mpg, so have a fuel cost of 10 cents/mile, while charging will still cost around 4 cents/mile. This means that in order to be competitive, the battery cost must come down to around 5 cent/mile, roughly a fourfold improvement. Given that battery technology advances at roughly 5% to 7% per year, it will take about 25 years for batteries to become competitive as a car fuel source.

At the same time there is a different application that could have a lot more impact: the electric bike has become a viable option for short distance transport, with the huge advantage of being so much lighter and thus inherently more efficient. Most importantly it promises to make the bicycle an option even in hilly terrain. It would only need to see enough bike lanes established to become widely adopted, and we might not only save money, but also improve our health.