For the past ten years, people have talked about the moment electric vehicles would be as affordable as combustion vehicles. With Li-Ion batteries making up the bulk of an EV's price, affordability meant lowering battery prices. This became even more obvious in the past two years when the cost of battery raw materials went through the roof, affecting EV affordability. But it wasn't just batteries. Inflation made everything more expensive, including vehicles, regardless of their power source.
The economic conditions made many believe that electric vehicles would remain forever expensive. Going carbon-neutral through electrification was also thought impossible in these conditions, and setting up a 2035 or even 2030 combustion-engine ban was madness. But then 2023 came, and Tesla shocked everyone with some of the deepest price cuts in history. After repeated price hikes in the past years, the EV market leader slashed the prices by more than 20 percent. And it kept doing so, with the latest price drop on April 19, just before the Q1 2023 earnings call.
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