I think the "we need a breakthrough" talk is a false naritive. Batteries are good enough today, and the incremental 7% decrease in cost each year, and approximately 20% decrease in volume every 5 years is pretty impressive. No Break Through needed. People need to get used to plug-ins though, and that takes time. Mercedes said last week it might take a decade for them really to take off. The simple incremental changes in 2026 mean batteries should cost only 51% as much and take up 65% of the volume. Add this to design advances that we see in cars like the i3-rex and tesla model 3, and large market share in 2030 seems almost assured in the US and Chinese market. Japan and Europe have some strange trade barriers and taxes, so it might be slower there, and who knows maybe fuel cells will start looking good in Japan in 2025 too. Is 200 miles a big jump from current? Since 265 miles was available in late 2012 for those old depositors of the model S, no, its no jump at all. 400 miles and 30 minute charging and 5 minute battery swap are current tech, they just need costs to go down. 290 mile model S 90D can be bought today with 1 hour super charging, and a good chunk of miles (150 approximately) added in 30 minutes. Compare Side-by-Side blended phevs get 14-27 miles, and erevs get 53 or 71 miles on a charge. This is all good enough, and simply needs prices to continue to come down.
not sure about the 'talk', but i said unless a breakthrough, not, we need a breakthrough. as far as 200 miles goes, it's a big jump from leaf and other cars in the price range, not a big jump in tech. you can call it a big decrease in price, but either way, we're not there yet.
hmm, tough to define. i guess something beyond incremental. for me, maybe 50 miles for the same price. but i really meant a new battery tech, other than lithium.
I was asking from one of two different viewpoints. One viewpoint is when a specific performance verse cost threshold is achieved. (Sort of like when solar power becomes cheaper than utility power.) The other viewpoint was a big jump from the previous versions. (Like the Prius vs similar sized ICE vehicle mpg.)
