Both BYD and CATL announced early this year that by the end of 2024 they will have lithium iron phosphate batteries at about $57/kWh.
Both companies have been pretty good at following up their announcements with products within a few months of the stated deadline.
You don’t get it. The last few posts have been about the importance of sales price on “EV desirability” so consider what I wrote from that context. There are no good BEVs selling below $30K in the United States so I actually find it remarkable that such a high percentage of younger adults still plan on buying an EV.
Once the price of BEVs reach parity with ICE/hybrids the percentage who will want to buy BEVs will rise precipitously. That’s been empirically demonstrated many times and in many places. Consider for example luxury cars in the USA.
BEVs continue to be popular in the luxury vehicle segment, maintaining about one-third of luxury LDV sales from 1Q23 through 1Q24. Of all BEV sales in 1Q24, 8 out of 10 sales were luxury models, https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=62063
In the US, the good BEVs are all priced at the luxury class level and they turn out to be very competitive with luxury ICEs. A third of US luxury car sales are BEVs despite the relatively small number of available models, range anxiety, lack of charging stations, etc. A 33% adoption in 2024 is pretty impressive, especially since there are still a number of states that prevent the direct sale of Teslas, the most popular BEVs.
There has yet to be a serious attempt to sell BEVs to the US mass market. This will occur in the next couple of years, at least by Tesla. BYD too if it gets a chance.
I see there is a need to spell things out for you. The Boomers are the last of a demographic where cars had a romantic connotation, symbolizing freedom, power, status, etc. Big, noisy engines and fancy styling used to be desirable. As the Boomers ride off into the sunset, Nascar is once again becoming just a regional attraction as cars are increasingly seen by younger generations as just a transportation tool. They prefer the utilitarian SUV form over that of sport and muscle cars. Fuel efficient aerodynamics over ornamental tail fins and spoilers. Energy efficiency matters more than horsepower, hence complicated hybrids outsell pure ICEs.
Once price parity at the mass market level is reached, the younger generations will choose the far more efficient, quieter, and cleaner BEV over the alternative power trains.