"There's still a lot of uncertainty," Harbour said, around a potential recession amid high inflation that's "hitting Gen Z and millennials, who are starting to control the buying power in our country … interest rates are high, the only person buying an electric vehicle and financing it … has got enough income to support it," she said.
Although inflation will "definitely slow things down," Harbour expects reduced interest rates "by the middle of the decade," in 2025 or 2026.
"The increased cost of business," is also currently affecting ICE products, she said, and "are maybe going to come down at the rate inflation will come down."
"I think the impact of the recession is going to be pretty minor … economists are saying there isn't going to be a recession at all," she added.
"The challenge is that the cost of these things currently is only something that the wealthy people can afford," Harbour said. "There's a lot of money in the marketplace, in all regions of the world, investing in ways to launch these products efficiently and effectively and get to the market and make them affordable."
"If anybody's going to [lower prices] it's probably going to be Tesla," she said. "Tesla's doing a lot to try to create the $25,000 vehicle to meet the market for the younger consumer."
Meanwhile, GM is creating an EV for every SUV model in its portfolio, Harbour said, which will help prices "start to match every consumer," closer to 2040.
Public range anxiety and a lack of charging infrastructure also have a long way to go to meet the needs of consumers.
"It's very interesting what happened with Tesla licensing or selling the use of their charging stations," Harbour said. "This is actually a really big deal that not a lot of people talk about … it now opens up the ability for [other OEM brands to charge on] … the largest population of charging [infrastructure] around [the U.S.]"
"It's also going to [add] dollars to Tesla's pocket," she added "So they can also implement more charging stations."
Although there's been technological progress in extending battery life and adding charging stations, "we have to do that faster," Harbour said. "It's like starting at zero and needing to get to a billion. The gap was so big. Have we closed it? Yeah. But not to the level that we need to."
AutoForecast Solutions predicts that more than 37 million BEVs will on the road by 2030 in North America.
Those consumers will also need to be able to afford to update their home electrical boxes if there aren't enough public charging stations by then, Harbour said.
"There're a lot of factors and a lot of people working on it," she said. "Being able to charge and get rid of range anxiety is what's going to tip people into buying electric products."