A new report has claimed that long-range electric cars will be as affordable as their petrol and diesel-powered counterparts by 2022.
According to Bloomberg Business, given the tumbling cost of electric car batteries, which saw prices fall by 35 per cent last year, the start of a real mass market for electric cars is just around the corner.
Globally, sales of electric cars were up by 60 per cent throughout 2015, which Bloomberg notes is a similar growth rate to that which propelled the Ford Model T past horses and buggies in the 1910s.
The website’s analysis claims that the 2020s will be the decade that electrically-powered cars take off, and estimates that by 2040 a full 35 per cent of all new cars sold globally will be electric.
'Aggressive forecast'
Critics claim that this is an ambitious target based on current sales figures, given that at present electric cars account for less than one per cent of the automotive industry’s overall sales.
However, batteries account for almost a third of an electric vehicle’s price tag, meaning that as battery technology improves and becomes cheaper, so will the plug-in vehicles.
Bloomberg does admit that its prediction is an “aggressive forecast”, but also notes that such a rapid uptake will see electricity providers scrambling to provide enough energy to meet demands.
If the site’s estimates are accurate, then by 2040 electric and plug-in hybrid cars will need 1,900 terawatt-hours of electricity, around 10 per cent of the overall amount produced in 2015.
