We're Not Even Close to EVs Being as Cheap as Gas Cars, Mercedes Says

The electric vehicle industry has seen a massive transformation over the last decade, in no small part thanks to massive reductions in the cost of large lithium-ion battery packs. Yet there's still a significant initial cost penalty to a battery-electric vehicle over an internal combustion car. According to Mercedes' Chief Technology Officer, that's not going away anytime soon. In fact, EVs may not get much cheaper at all over the next few years.

"Coming to [a battery price of] 50 U.S. dollars per kilowatt, which would lead to comparable cost basis to an I.C.E. engine, I would say this is far out there," Mercedes CTO Markus Schäfer told Road & Track. "I don't see that with the chemistry that we have today."

Reaching so-called "price parity," Schäfer said, just isn't possible with any current commercially available battery technology. The kind of affordable, high-density batteries required to make it possible either don't exist or only exist in tightly-controlled lab settings. Even once we know which one will work, adapting it for the automotive industry—with its high volumes and extremely challenging durability requirements—will be a years-long process. While we wait for a breakthrough, Schäfer says they can't promise that EVs will get any cheaper in the near term.