INNOVATION

When will electirc cars go to mainstream?

Drive the streets of Silicon Valley and you’ll see disproportionate numbers of electric cars gliding around. The wonders of both computer technology and electric vehicle technology appeal to the same brainy, forward-thinking people. But when it comes to making the products more universally accepted, they are anything but similar.
“Moore’s Law,” named for Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, postulates that microchip performance doubles every two years without an increase in cost. However, the same law that drives down the price of your iPhone does not apply to the lithium ion batteries that are at the heart of electric vehicle technology.
John Paul MacDuffie , professor of management at Wharton, says battery technology has been slower to evolve. While electric cars have made meaningful progress in recent years, they have not yet reached the price point that will put them in most driveways around America. “The moment for a tipping point for electric vehicles is not here — yet again.” But there are also “some developments that make me think it’s not back to zero.”