December 9, 2020 2 min to read
Why are electric cars expensive: all you need to know
Category : Cars
With the looming climate crisis, many people are looking into investing in good affordable electric cars as an environmentally friendly way to get them from A to B.
But, as you may have noticed if you’ve looked into purchasing an electric car for yourself, the price of electric cars is astronomical!
So, why is the electric car cost through the roof? Why is the price of electric cars so steep? And are there any truly affordable electric cars out there yet?
How economical are they in all seasons and what are charging station costs? These are just some of the questions we aim to address in this article, among others.
How much does an electric car cost?
Well, an electric car typically costs anywhere from $30,000 to $40,000 to buy, on average. This is far more expensive than any car’s gas equivalent.
Why does an electric car cost so much?
The main reason why an electric car costs so much to buy is its battery. This is a truly sophisticated piece of kit.
The battery of an electric car is the same lithium-ion battery of your smartphone or laptop, albeit much larger, of course.
But the lithium battery, so integral to the electric car, contains one important and expensive component: the cathode. This is one of two electrodes that help to store and release the battery’s charge.
The cathode is comprised of expensive materials. Namely, precious metals like manganese, lithium, nickel and cobalt. So, these are a large contributor to the cost of the battery.
But this is not all. These metals also need to be properly mined and processed before they reach the highly pure stage at which they are suitable to form an electric car’s battery’s cathode.
So it’s easy to see why this sophisticated component is the most expensive one.
How much does an average electric car battery cost?
So, how much does an electric car’s battery cost, then? How much of the vehicle’s total price does it make up?
Well, the average battery cost for an electric vehicle today is around $7,350. A little steep – but this is a price that has come down in recent years.
So how economical are electric cars then?
You might easily be put off electric cars since they cost so much to buy outright. This is true. But, the price of buying an electric car is slowly going down year by year.
As well as this, electric cars are getting cheaper than gas cars to run.
How much does it cost to run an electric car?
However, after you’ve bought an electric car, its running costs are incredibly cheap. If you go for a plug-in hybrid, expect to pay…
Continue reading the article and learn more about electric cars on Daisy Linden’s blog.