The growth in the popularity of hybrids and EVs is to a great extent underpinned by the growth of their affordability. The average price of an electric vehicle in the US during the period from Q2 to Q3 2023 dropped by 5% (down to USD 50,280 per car), and compared to Q2 2022 the price decline rate achieved 24%. Eventually, now the EV price exceeds the average price of all types of regular cars less than by USD 3,000 per car. Partially, such price reduction is underpinned by the drop in Lithium prices affecting the production costs of the EV-makers. In 2022, the average lithium carbonate price in the US was USD 37,000 per tonne, but by the end of September 2023 it came down to USD 23,500 per ton, and by the end of November 2023 – down to USD 17,700 per ton.
At the same time, the electric vehicles are most demanded in the luxury segment. According to Wards Intelligence, luxury EVs constituted 91% of all the sales in Q3 2023, while as luxury cars using gasoline and diesel accounted only for 13%. In the overall luxury cars sales, the share of EVs achieved 34%, while as in the overall sales of cars of other price categories it was less than 2%.
In general, the Wards Intelligence data prove that the cars using the internal combustion engines (ICE) still provide for over 80% of the entire US cars market despite the rapid development of the electric vehicles. In the European markets, the competition is a bit more intense: the ICE share is about 50%. According to the European Car-Makers Association (ACEA), the share of cars using gasoline and diesel in the new cars sales mix in the EU decreased from 92.3% in 2018 down to 52.8% in 2022, while as the cumulative share of EVs and hybrids grew from 5.9% up to 44.1% respectively, and the share of all other cars – from 1.8% up to 3.1%.
