It will likely take a decade, but improvements to
lithium-ion batteries could lead to much cheaper EVs.
There are plenty of reasons why electric cars aren’t
catching on, but one problem is certain: the batteries cost far too much.
For electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids to compete with
gas-powered cars, battery prices need to drop by between 50 and 80 percent,
according to recent estimates by the U.S. Department of Energy. Getting there
might require inventing entirely new kinds of batteries, but there’s also a
strong case that improvements to the lithium-ion batteries that power the
current generation of electric vehicles may be enough.