> from 2025 onwards traditional internal combustion engines will not be able to compete on price with electric cars

We bought a 2 year old Leaf (30 KWh) recently after I worked out the TCO for it. Here's what I discovered.

We pay a lot of electricity here in Japan (I think it's about 30 cents per KWh where I live). So a full charge would cost us about $9 if we charged at home. Driving carefully we can get between 200-220 km on that -- so about 4.5 cents per km. Gasoline costs about $1.50 per litre and our old car had "mileage" of about 7 l/100km or about 10.5 cents per km (that's a lie because we have a 12 year old car -- it's really about 10 l/100km, but newer versions are near are more efficient, so I'll use that number). We drive about 1200 km a month (I say "we", but really it's only my wife -- I don't really like driving :-) ). So the difference is about $72 a month.

We also have to pay "shaken" here in Japan. This is a bit like the UK MOT. You have to get your car in essentially perfect running order every 2 years. It usually costs about $1000, or $500 per year. Because it's an electric car, the shaken costs are assumed to be small. We "prepaid" our shaken (i.e. bought insurance) for $200 for the next 4 years (or $50 per year). So that's a savings of $450 per year or $37.50 per month.

So rounding up, we're up to about $110 per month saved. On top of that there is almost no maintenance cost (oil changes, air filters, timing belts, etc). Let's say $120 per year saved (to make the math easy ;-)). So that's $120 per month.

But on top of that, we got this crazy deal from Nissan (or the government? or both? I'm not sure) where we get free unlimited recharging for 2 years and $20 per month after that. So that's a savings of $54 per month for the first 2 years and $34 per month after that (as long as we charge at the fast charging stations -- note, there are some negative implications for battery life for using the charging stations and it is a PITA to go and charge it all the time, so I'm not sure how true that savings will be).

Our previous car was a BMW 118i. The Leaf is every bit as good. If you turn the eco mode off, it has similar power (but of course a much nicer torque curve -- flat) so it's easy to pass or get out of trouble. In eco mode, it's a bit sluggish, but not really a problem 95% of the time. The Leaf has slightly better handling, but also slightly larger turning radius. Similar fit and finish. The Leaf seems slightly more spacious and has similar storage space. In actuality very similar cars in almost every respect, however the BWM is quite a bit more expensive.

So apart from range (which isn't a problem for us in any way), it's a pretty clear EV win for that kind of mid-size "nice" car. Probably it would be quite a bit closer if I were to compare to a Toyota Prius (especially in Japan where you can get a rebate), but I was amazed about how cheap EVs are now. It's pretty hard to match. If batteries come down in price, it will be impossible for sure.

Not sure how the numbers would work out in other parts of the world (especially in a cold climate), but it really is getting to the point where ICEs don't make sense any more.