John Maslin: Electric cars in the fast lane

Nissan Leaf electric cars charging at a public electric vehicle charge station.

How's this for a prediction?

An Oxford University academic reckons within 10 to 15 years no one will be producing cars that use an internal combustion engine as their power source.

Malcolm McCullough is an associate professor at the esteemed college of higher learning and he told a symposium on electric cars held in Wellington recently he reckons all cars will be electric-powered within that timeframe.

By electric, he means battery-powered. His argument is based on the theory that the price of batteries is coming down much more quickly than anticipated.

We won't go into the hefty detail but Mr McCullough says, by industry reckoning, once the price of a battery gets below US$150 ($209) per kilowatt hour, then it is cheaper to make electric cars than petrol-driven ones. Importantly, that threshold is on track to be reached within a couple of years.

If he's right, then don't expect to see our roads filled with battery-powered cars overnight. At the moment, there isn't the manufacturing capacity to meet demand. But a sea change in the motoring industry is coming.

Ministry of Transport figures for the end of March show there were only 1304 light electric vehicles in New Zealand, which is less than 0.25 per cent of total light vehicle registrations.

But carmakers are hitting the "go fast" pedal to build these vehicles. At the moment, a key to this growth is the lithium that makes up the batteries. New technologies are coming which use more plentiful raw materials than lithium. The move toward cleaner, electric-powered vehicles marches inexorably on, so Mr McCullough's predictions cannot be dismissed. He is right about the future of the internal combustion engine. Its life clock is ticking.