Cost-effective EVs by 2025 could cause the next oil crisis
Tony Seba announced last week that cost-effectiveness would make electric vehicles (EVs) a compelling alternative to conventional vehicles by 2025, with performance picking up rapidly while prices fall. He expects the cost of an EV to fall to around $30k by 2020, and $22k by 2022, making EVs the “rational, economic choice” very quickly. As Bloomberg pointed out earlier this year, this isn't something that oil markets are planning for, therefore, the fast rise in electric cars and cheaper batteries could ignite the next oil crisis.

All new vehicles would be electric by 2025, due to cost-effectiveness rather than a green revolution, Tony Seba, a serial entrepreneur and author, told a Nomura investment forum.

Electric vehicle (EV) performance has been improving so quickly and prices have been falling so fast that the internal combustion engine (ICE) wouldn't be able to compete for much longer, Seba, the author of "Clean Disruption of Energy and Transportation," told the Thursday forum.

"You will soon be able to get Porsche performance for Buick prices and when you get that, neither Porsche nor Buick are able to compete," he said.

He said he expected the cost of an electric vehicle to fall to about $30,000 by 2020, compared with the $33,000 current median price of a new ICE car in the U.S. By 2022, a low-end EV would be available for as little as $22,000, he predicted.

Seba said the "marginal cost" of owning an EV was essentially zero because maintenance costs were so low, noting that while ICE cars had more than 2,000 moving parts, EVs had about 20, making for few breakdowns.