A new report by London-based research team at Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) has asserted that the cost of electric cars will probably be lower than that of petrol/diesel cars by the year 2025. The report is based on the projections that lithium-ion battery packs will become cheaper in the coming years.

According to the report, the cost of some models of electric cars will be the same as gas-guzzling vehicles by the 2024; and, in 2025, majority of electric-car models will become cheaper than petrol cars.

However, for electric cars to become cheaper than gas-guzzlers by 2025, it is imperative that cost of battery packs continues to fall over the next few years, despite the widely-projected increase in the demand for the metals for producing the units.

Highlighting the fact that the mass production of lithium-ion batteries is expected to witness an increase in the coming years, BNEF said in its report that by 2030, there will probably be a noteworthy drop in battery prices to as low as $70 a kilowatt hour, as compared to $208 a kilowatt hour last year.

With the total manufacturing cost of electric vehicles expected to fall in coming years due to cheaper battery packs, BNEF’s transport analyst Colin McKerracher said that the sales of electric vehicle sales will continue to “ramp up” in the coming years. He further added that “battery prices still need to decline further for real mass market adoption.”