11. Economy

The economics of electric and hydrogen-powered cars will be dealt with only superficially here, as many other factors, other than technical ones, are involved and evolving very rapidly. These include subsidies for vehicle purchases, constraints imposed on companies and private individuals alike, ever-increasing and rapidly changing taxes, and so on. Added to this are societal and psychological factors which mean that the market for electric vehicles has not yet reached a stable state, as is the case for internal combustion vehicles. We'll be concentrating on electric cars, as the market for hydrogen-powered cars is, for the moment, still confidential.

Up to 2023, the number of electric or plug-in hybrid cars has risen sharply each year. While 3.25 million such vehicles were sold in 2020, 70% of them electric, 14.2 million were sold in 2023, 70.4% of them fully electric...