Electric vehicle prices are down 18% so far this month compared to April 2023. One of the reasons for this is that most car manufacturers tempt their customers with aggressive price discounts.
One of the biggest obstacles to the spread of electric cars today is their higher price compared to internal combustion models. Up until now, the upswing in sales has also been helped by individual state subsidies, but these seem to be running out. All of this can be seen in the sales figures. Whether this is really behind the declining sales globally is a good question, but it is certain that prices still have to fall a lot in order for purely electric, or BEV, models to produce growth on a sustained upward trajectory.
But it is certain that something has started in this field in the world. Several factors play into this equation. One of the most important of these could certainly be a reduction in the production costs of one of the most expensive components, the battery. But it is also worth considering that car manufacturers have been dealing with the topic for a few years, so costs can be slowly but surely reduced in terms of assembly and component production as well. Either way, the prices of electric cars have started to fall over the past year, thanks to, among other things, the massive discounts offered by many manufacturers. According to an American study, prices were almost 18 percent cheaper there than in April 2023. The diagram below shows how the prices of the relevant models developed, broken down into categories, one of which is the category of EV, i.e. electric cars.
“It is concrete evidence that lower e-car prices have significantly contributed to the increase in the sales volume of such cars in the United States.” explained Stephanie Valdez Streaty, director of Cox Automotive Industry Insights.
According to the institute’s data, the prices of electric vehicles were specifically 18.3 percent lower in April 2024, while the prices of non-electric vehicles were 13.1 percent lower than last year. Many automakers have given their electric models deep discounts to get rid of inventory.
For example, Ford cut Mach-E prices in the States by an average of $8,100 in March. Volkswagen is offering a $13,000 discount on the 2023 ID.4 AWD Pro S, and Hyundai cut prices on the IONIQ 5 and IONIQ 6 earlier this year. But things have not happened differently in the premium segment either: BMW recently introduced new price discounts of between $5,000 and $7,500 for 2024 models, but the price of the Mercedes-Benz EQS there is already almost $20,000 lower.
