“Comparing straight costs for disparate products or where there are intangibles involved (convenience of a gasoline engine versus low maintenance on an electric vehicle) can be tricky and allow for wild differences in estimated consumer demand for a product, even without disagreements over future cost trends.”

“Although costs have been dropping for the Cleantech products such as solar, wind power, and lithium-ion batteries, costs for a number of other long-advocated energies such as cellulosic ethanol have not…. The ultimate lesson is an old one:  skepticism should always be applied, especially to the more optimistic predictions.”

Any number of analytical and advocacy groups have pointed to plummeting costs for wind, solar and lithium-ion batteries to predict massive changes in the future energy industry, some more aggressive than others.  The UK-based think tank RethinkX, for example, expects a huge shift from private vehicle ownership to the use of Transportation As A Service, provided mostly by battery-powered autonomous (self-driving) vehicles.…