When Will Electric Cars Go Mainstream? It May Be Sooner Than You Think<br />A new report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a research group, suggests<br />that the price of plug-in cars is falling much faster than expected, spurred by cheaper batteries and aggressive policies promoting zero-emission vehicles in China and Europe.<br />Exxon Mobil, which is studying the threat that electric cars could pose to its business model, still expects<br />that plug-in vehicle sales will grow slowly, to just 10 percent of new sales in the United States by 2040, with little impact on global oil use.<br />Between 2025 and 2030, the group predicts, plug-in vehicles will become cost competitive with traditional<br />petroleum-powered cars, even without subsidies and even before taking fuel savings into account.<br />As a result, the Bloomberg report warns that plug-in vehicles may have a difficult time making inroads in dense urban areas and<br />that infrastructure bottlenecks may slow the growth of electric vehicles after 2040.<br />Governments could scale back their incentives before plug-in vehicles become<br />fully competitive — many states are already beginning to tax electric cars.
