Say you have an opinion piece in a news paper that says that electric cars will always be expensive toys for the rich. It relies on a scientific paper published in a technical journal 2 years ago. The scientific paper does not perform original research but relies on a study published 2 years ago, which study relies on official data reported by companies six months before publication.
Perhaps nobody in this propagation chain meant to mislead. But in the end they are using old data that assumes that battery costs are five times what they are in reality and twenty times what they will be in the near future (for example) and draws all the wrong conclusions.
Similar things are happening with articles and public comments about renewable energy. There are numerous arguments about how we will always need coal power or nuclear power, or natural gas and they all base it on old studies with obsolete high costs of batteries. These articles commit a further error by also neglecting the every decreasing costs of solar and wind power. These articles are even more egregious because while a car lasts only 10-15 years a power plant is supposed to last at least 30 (for coal or gas) and up to 60 (for nuclear). Furthermore, nuclear plants take 5 to 10 years to even build. In those years the costs of batteries and renewables will only go down further.
In the financial press there were many articles about how Tesla will never be profitable, how it is an extravagant way for shareholders to subsidize luxury car buyers, how it will always rely on government subsidies and will need more of them, etc. Well, guess what the federal tax credit expired and lo and behold tesla is profitable.
They weren't necessarily lying. But they were using automotive industry assumptions, and the auto industry with their internal combustion engines is a mature industry with few opportunities for cost reductions. But as far as batteries and electric motors and power semiconductors go ... well we are just getting started on them and hopefully we will have many opportunities for cost reductions.
