It’s becoming more and more clear that we are on the edge of another massive change in the world of cars. Like the manual to automatic change before it, the next big thing in car manufacturing is a switch to EV’s. The question is less “will electric cars replace gas cars?” and more “when?” and that’s the question we’re going to explore in this article.
Cost of Electric Cars
EV technology gets more and more advanced every year, with ranges increasing, charge speeds reducing, and more and more charge stations popping up. The primary block for general consumers right now is the cost of buying an electric car.
For many, especially lower income households, the initial cost of buying an Electric car is too much, even if in the long run they could save on gas prices, the principle cost of the car is prohibitively expensive.
It follows then that electric cars will replace gas gas completely when Electric cars become more affordable to the general public. We’re already starting to see these prices come down, as the technology becomes more understood it becomes cheaper to produce and therefore cheaper to sell. Experts in the field predict that by 2025 electric cars will be on price par with their traditional counterparts.
Politics
Of course there are factors outside of pure market forces that may push this faster than it might happen otherwise. Globally electric cars are being pushed for their cleaner environmental impact, and Canada is no exception. The federal government already offers tax rebates on certain electric cars, and have promised to ban the production of gas cars by 2035 which gives us a definitive date for when this switch will happen, though likely by then most will already have switched over.
At a provincial level there is currently no incentive program but it is one of the many discussion points of the next provincial election, and whichever party wins could have an impact on the speed at which we see Electric cars overtake traditional cars.
Car Culture
There’s been a noticeable shift in how electric cars are talked about within car lover’s circles in the last 5 years. Where they used to be dismissed as gimmicky and weak compared to traditional cars. The conversation has shifted much more towards the side of supporting electric cars.
There are still plenty of traditionalists but as more and more brands start branching into electric vehicles, gearheads around the world are changing their tune on EVs and as they do, demand for more electric cars is going up. More demand means more supply, which means an increased amount of EVs on the road.
So, will electric cars replace gas powered cars completely? Probably, we just don’t know how long until that happens.