A TECH expert has revealed three reasons that EVs could stay more expensive for longer as car brands face a tough decision.
Andrew Orlowski, founder of research network Think of X, suggested that the cheap electric car revolution may still be quite a way off.
Writing in The Telegraph he explained why lower prices may be threatened by the efforts of Western governments to "decouple" from China.
Andrew said: "Global markets are now flooded with cheaper electric cars, and their price is kept artificially low by huge state subsidies, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen declared last month.
"The Commission has followed up with an investigation.
"Europe watched its onshore solar panel industry vanish after cheaper Chinese imports captured the market in the late noughties, and it doesn’t want to be caught out again."
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He also claimed that the Government's ZEV Mandate, which requires 80% of all new cars to be electric by 2030, could also add costs onto manufacturers' balance sheets.
The mandate is enforced by the threat of a £15,000 fine per each engine a company falls short of it by.
Analysis from Dataforce suggests that, based on the sales mix from 2022, up to £2.4 billion could be dished out in fines across the motor industry.
A spokesperson for the company said: "Hitting the Car Manufacturers with fines might sound good and it should make them
move faster.
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"But for a mere mortal to buy a new BV, it's currently not the most economical thing to do.
"EV Mandate fines should be spent as incentives or subsidies for the transition to net zero."
This, according to Andrew, holds prices high as manufacturers seek to mitigate losses being made on EVs as they are forced to integrate them in ever greater numbers into their sales strategy.
He cited last week's news that two major brands abandoned plans to collaborate on more affordable EVs over profitability concerns as evidence of this.
Finally, car makers are hamstrung in terms of offering bargains by the price of the raw materials needed to make electric cars.
According to the Institute for Energy Research (IER), graphite is the largest element by weight in an EV battery.
This is inconvenient since the graphite market is dominated by China, which announced last week that it would be reducing the amount it exports from December, further increasing costs.
A spokesperson for the IER said: "A typical EV requires six times the mineral inputs as an internal combustion engine.
"A lot of the problems you are seeing in the EV market right now are the result of the many public policy contradictions Western governments have embraced in their desire to support EVs through industrial policy.
"Unfortunately, these sorts of contradictions are unavoidable when the government attempts to remake the auto market through industrial policy.
"The end result is contradictory, self-defeating policies like what we are seeing around EVs."
Even if you import batteries whole, as Tesla, VW and BMW do, the market is largely captured by Shanghai-based CATL, which supplies all three of those major firms.
And the ongoing disagreement over tariffs between the UK and EU, designed by Brussels to cut down on cheap imported cars, could see costs increase on both sides of the Channel.
Industry bodies have urged legislators to delay the new levies, which would add £3,400 to European EVs sold in the UK and £3,600 to that of electric models made in the UK and shipped to the EU.
Considering that two-thirds of our cars come from the EU and a third that we export are EVs, this represents a significant uptick in prices for consumers.
However, it should be noted that, beyond higher purchase prices, Evs are generally cheaper to run than petrol or diesel equivalents.
Charging, especially home charging, tends to be cheaper than fuelling up, while electric models also require less regular maintenance.
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It comes after drivers were warned over insurance rules that could cost flood victims thousands.
Meanwhile, a major EV brand unveiled a unique campervan concept that can transform into a mobile shop.
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