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Comment by dangrossman
I don't think there's any "collusion" or other conspiracy to hold back electric vehicles, I think what BMW said is objectively true. Lithium batteries have cost too much in the past decade to put them into more than luxury cars or negative-profit compliance cars. Supply chains don't appear overnight. LG Chem, Samsung SDI, AESC/NEC, BYD, Foxconn, etc have been building factories and securing raw materials for many many years to have the capacity to sell car manufacturers enough batteries for a few million cars a year by the end of the decade. The price per kWh still makes the battery in a car like the Chevy Bolt a $8000 part, which means you're never going to make a $15K car with one inside. That price has been dropping year over year, and around 2020 is when it'll be cheap enough to make cars in the price range people actually buy them that have big batteries inside.