Everyone assumes that in the future we will all be driving electric cars, but did you know that this future is actually pretty close at hand? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that these types of vehicles are still relatively uncommon to see on the roads because not everybody can afford one. However, there’s a clear pattern when it comes to new technologies and we’re definitely seeing it here as well. Back in the day when electric cars were first introduced they were prohibitively expensive for most people, but as the years go by the prices have been dropping at a constant rate.

The main reason for why such cars are usually pretty expensive comes from the materials used, as you might imagine. Specifically, the electric battery packs. Interestingly enough, these battery packs are not as expensive as some may think according to a study recently published by Nature. The journal reveals that the cost of battery packs has been dropping by as much as 14% each year between 2007 and 2014, which means that the costs of manufacturing the electric cars powered by them has been dropping as well. Even more interesting is the fact that leading electric cars manufacturers like Tesla are working cheaper than previously expected, with the battery packs used by them only costing about $300 per kWh. This is down from more than $1000 back in 2007, so clearly the costs of manufacturing have been lowered by quite a large margin in the last few years.

In fact, this newly published study suggests that the realistic cost of building electric cars is much lower than even the most optimistic projections made by analysts. Needless to say, car manufacturers have been holding back on us a bit given that electric cars are still pretty expensive in spite of the fact that some of their components have become much cheaper as of late. The authors of the paper also speculate that if the current trends continue, we might be looking at battery packs as cheap as $150 per kWh, which would lead to “a potential paradigm shift in vehicle technology.” It goes without saying that a lot of people would switch from regular vehicles to electric cars if the latter become more affordable. Let’s hope that manufacturers will start taking into account more the dropping prices of electric battery packs and lower the cost of the overall vehicle accordingly in the near future.