FRANKFURT — An electric Volkswagen ID.3 for the same price as a Golf. A Tesla Model 3 that costs as much as a BMW 3 Series. A Renault Zoe electric subcompact whose monthly lease payment might equal a nice dinner for two in Paris.
Electric vehicles are not yet as popular in the United States, largely because government incentives are less generous. Battery-powered cars account for about 2% of new car sales in America, while in Europe the market share is approaching 5%. Including hybrids, the share rises to nearly 9% in Europe, according to Matthias Schmidt, an independent analyst in Berlin.
The balance of power in the auto industry may depend on which carmaker, electronics company or startup succeeds in squeezing the most power per pound into a battery, what’s known as energy density. A battery with high energy density is inherently cheaper because it requires fewer raw materials and less weight to deliver the same range.
Venkat Viswanathan, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University who closely follows the industry, is more cautious. But he said: “We are already on a very accelerated timeline. If you asked anyone in 2010 whether we would have price parity by 2025, they would have said that was impossible.
For traditional car companies, this is all very scary. Internal combustion engines have not changed fundamentally for decades, but battery technology is still wide open. There are even geopolitical implications. China is pouring resources into battery research, seeing the shift to electric power as a chance for companies like NIO to break into the European and someday, American, markets. In less than a decade, Chinese battery maker CATL has become one of the world’s biggest manufacturers.
“But,” Carlsson said, “there is a massive amount of resources going into the race to beat Tesla. A number, not all, of the big carmakers are going to catch up.”Peter Rawlinson, who led design of the Tesla Model S and is now chief executive of the electric car startup Lucid, likes to wow audiences by showing up at events dragging a rolling carry-on bag containing the company’s supercompact drive unit.
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