The title is misleading. Cost per mile is calculated as the initial vehicle price over range.
It would be interesting to see if electricity cost per mile driven was also falling.
It would be interesting to see if electricity cost per mile driven was also falling.
The discouraging thing in the article is "Although the global EV market set a record for number of sales in 2016, market growth actually slowed to 60 percent in 2016 from 77 percent in 2015."
I suspect they will hit 10% fairly quickly, but take much longer to break 50%. The really interesting transition is when gas stations start disappearing.
It's due to property values, not electric cars, but it would be interesting to see if people switch to electrics because of disappearing gas stations.
Already happened in Japan.
Net-net, electricity cost per mile driven is going up, but is still significantly lower than for gasoline in most locales.
So if you want to see how electric cars are progressing towards being economical with practical ranges, price/range is a good ratio.
* $/kWh varies by a factor of 2.2 within the continental U.S., from Washington at <$0.1/kWH to Connecticut and Alaska at >$0.2/kWH. (Hawaii is an outlier $0.3/kWH.) Source: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...
* $/gallon varies by 1.4, from Midwestern states at around $2.3/gallon to Washington and California > $3/gallon. Source: http://www.gasbuddy.com/USA
* Some places gas is cheap and electricity is expensive, and vice versa. The ratio of $/kWh to $/gallon varies by a factor of 2.3 from gas-cheap NH, MA, and AK to gas-dear Washington and Oregon.
* Some states get (much) colder in winter. Cold weather impacts EV mileage much worse than gas engine mileage, especially if you spend fuel on cabin heat.
Maybe someone will build a calculator? It would be nice to have something like https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/buy-rent-cal... for gas versus EV purchases.
[Edited to replace 2011 kWH data by data from June 2017]
Also, are they talking about the price the buyer pays, or the total price, including government subsidies?
To me, it's like saying "cell phones are getting more expensive, but cost/battery-life is improving!
Do people care about battery life? Absolutely! But I guarantee they care much more about purchase price, resale value and generally total cost of ownership.
If the car's price went up 2x, but the car's range went up 3x, I don't think you'd see celebration in the streets. That's why the metric is preposterous.
To wit: most sub-100-mile BEV's, with incentives, have been priced at the same level as bargain-basement gas cars, while coming with top-end features. Here in CA, Fiat has been running a regular special on a 500e 3-year lease for $100 or less per month. Meanwhile, Tesla is holding cash deposits from nearly a half-million people for a 200-mile car that will cost $40k+ by the time it's optioned out, and Bolts are selling briskly at similar price levels.