Electric vehicles barely halfway to parity with petrol cars – study

Price equality between petrol and electric vehicles is still years or decades away, according to research in the US.

Electric vehicles are barely past the halfway point in reaching price parity with petrol power, according to the J.D. Power automotive research company in the US.

Its latest study used six key factors to measure the differences – and scored electric vehicles at 51 per cent of price parity with petrol cars.

The US results, which operate as a live tracker and not an annual report, are unlikely to be reflected in Australia because of key differences in most factors, including recommended retail prices and availability.

Source: J.D. Power

The measurements used for the research company’s ‘EV Index‘ – interest, availability, price, adoption, infrastructure and experience – take petrol cars as the 100 per cent benchmark and then compare the electric vehicle scores.

There is no comparable research information for Australia.

According to J.D. Power, the user experience for electric vehicles scored best, at 93 per cent, believed to be due to the smooth and quiet acceleration.

Affordability also scored well, at 87 per cent, but there are many more buyer incentive programs in the US than Australia and the high prices for petrol through 2022 also worked in favour of electric vehicles.

Availability of electric vehicles got the lowest score, at 21 per cent, and is a reflection of the early stages of the global roll-out of battery-powered cars.

Infrastructure and adoption also got low scores, with the US results also highlighting the situation in Australia where sales of electric cars are less than four per cent of the overall showroom totals (Australia is 2.8 per cent).

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