Electric vehicles are comparatively new compared to the older combustion engine, and need different materials to power them. <\/p>
Despite the push for greener forms of transport and a pledge of a net-zero future by 2050<\/a>, it’s considerably more expensive to buy an electric car, than it is petrol or diesel. And there are several reasons why electric cars are still so expensive. <\/p> The first is that there\u2019s no economy of scale. While manufacturers have been making cars powered by internal combustion engines for over 100 years, mass-produced electric cars are\u00a0still relatively new. There are also fewer factories able to make the specialised components.<\/p> The costliest part of the electric car is the battery and worldwide shortages of lithium<\/a> (an essential element in lithium-ion batteries) have driven prices higher. Between 2020 and 2023 there was\u00a0also a shortage of semiconductors<\/a> (essential in these high-tech cars)\u00a0caused by the COVID pandemic. Added to this was extreme weather in Taiwan and the China-USA trade war, which pushed up prices even further.\u00a0<\/p> Read more:<\/strong><\/p> To submit your questions email us at questions@sciencefocus.com (don’t forget to include your name and location)<\/em><\/em><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n Electric vehicles are comparatively new compared to the older combustion engine, and need different materials to power them. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":37840,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/12\/the-frustrating-reasons-electric-cars-are-so-expensive-explained-by-a-scientist.jpg",1200,800,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/12\/the-frustrating-reasons-electric-cars-are-so-expensive-explained-by-a-scientist-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/12\/the-frustrating-reasons-electric-cars-are-so-expensive-explained-by-a-scientist-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/12\/the-frustrating-reasons-electric-cars-are-so-expensive-explained-by-a-scientist-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/12\/the-frustrating-reasons-electric-cars-are-so-expensive-explained-by-a-scientist-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/12\/the-frustrating-reasons-electric-cars-are-so-expensive-explained-by-a-scientist.jpg",1200,800,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/12\/the-frustrating-reasons-electric-cars-are-so-expensive-explained-by-a-scientist.jpg",1200,800,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Electric vehicles are comparatively new compared to the older combustion engine, and need different materials to power them.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/37839"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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