Maybe one of the best parts about 2015 will be being one-step closer to a mass market, 200-mile range electric vehicle.  At an Autoline panel of experts (video below), two battery business leaders (Ann Marie Sastry, CEO of Sakti3 and Prabhakar Patil, CEO of LG Chem’s North American unit), and a researcher (Brett Smith of the Center for Automotive Research) hint that we may be two years away from such a transformative vehicle.

The key is to get the cost down to $100 per kilowatt hour, which Sastry is pledging to achieve at her company by 2017. Meanwhile, if Tesla can get there with the Gigafactory, the panelists predict the company will have competition from other automakers. Which is only a good thing for consumers and fans of keeping the Earth’s climate at a livable temperature. If you don’t have time to watch the video, Green Car Reports has a write-up of the video here.