The Importance of 2022 as EV Vehicles hit Cost Parity with Fossil Fuel Cars

It is very close now – yes, electric vehicles hitting parity with fossil fuel cars on cost. The date is now 2022 when the cost of electric vehicles will be at parity with internal combustion vehicles. As this happens very fast, Nigeria needs to improve its game plan as the post-petroleum era is coming faster than most think.

Every year, BloombergNEF’s advanced transport team builds a bottom-up analysis of the cost of purchasing an electric vehicle and compares it to the cost of a combustion-engine vehicle of the same size. The crossover point — when electric vehicles become cheaper than their combustion-engine equivalents — will be a crucial moment for the EV market. All things being equal, upfront price parity makes a buyer’s decision to buy an EV a matter of taste, style or preference — but not, for much longer, a matter of cost.

Every year, that crossover point gets closer. In 2017, a BloombergNEF analysis forecast that the crossover point was in 2026, nine years out. In 2018, the crossover point was in 2024 — six years (or, as I described it then, two lease cycles) out.

The crossover point, per the latest analysis, is now 2022 for large vehicles in the European Union. For that, we can thank the incredible shrinking electric vehicle battery, which isn’t so much shrinking in size as it is shrinking — dramatically — in cost.

We need to get to work as a nation as quickly as possible.

The nation still has lots of opportunities to prepare for the post-petroleum era. First, it has to invest in education. This is important as education remains one of the best ways to sustain any economy. It is an organic engine for national, political and economic succession and catalyst for national prosperity. Because every nation has got a limit to its wealth creation without science and technology, Nigeria must invest in technology creation on agriculture, nanotechnology, biotechnology, manufacturing and Internet. We must position our nation to transmute from petroleum-driven economy to technology-driven one. Nigeria has to allow market driven-industrialization work by improving the necessary frameworks to make it possible. Government must boost scholarships for technical education.

The Nigeria’s Post-Petroleum Era

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