Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
to drive down costs

to drive down costs

4 3.3
To reduce expenses in a company or organization
  • phrasal verb
translation icon : reducir costos
  • Through programs like SolarStrong, the military has the ability to accelerate large-scale deployment, driving down costs and helping technologies along the learning curve.
  • drive down health care costs
  • drive down health care costs
  • drive down labor costs

So for me, I would argue to take a step back and remodel it to drive down the costs even more, not the other way around.

Autoplay Next

Examples

  • A pan-European grid would bring economies of scale, increasing market competition and driving down costs by reducing the need for expensive backup plants.

    Blog text (4)

  • Other companies are also working to drive down costs and to bring reverse engineering and rapid prototyping methods to a larger audience.

    Academic text (2010)

  • Google would not only add competition, but it could drive down costs more than many others because of the way it does business.

    Blog text (33)

  • And that drives down the cost of those services overall.

  • Perceived future costs of an operation may serve to drive down actual costs.

    Academic text (1998)

  • The result would hopefully be more investments in infrastructure and technology, driving down costs for the poor.

    Blog text (13)

  • And mass production will rapidly drive down the cost and weight of batteries.

    Blog text (34)

  • Tesla's plan is to use the knowledge gained from each model to drive down the costs for the next model.

    Blog text (4)

  • As the CEO and co-founder of Molplex, David shares his vision with us: to drive down productivity costs from 20 million to 1 million.

    Blog text (9)

  • Several lawmakers want the government to drive down costs to help consumers save money.

Synonyms

to cut costs
vsto drive down costs
30 3.0

To spend less money to save or make more money

aims to lower expenses in organizations without stressing profit motive
to retrench
vsto drive down costs
  • Formal
5 8.1

To reduce spending because of money problems

cuts expenses as a general management strategy, not only during hardship
to slash spending
vsto drive down costs
4 4.2

To cut the amount of money a person or group uses by a lot

lowers expenses in a less extreme or less drastic way
to prune the budget
vsto drive down costs
4.9

To cut spending by removing unnecessary costs from a budget

reduces overall expenses more generally rather than selective trimming

Antonyms

to inflate
30 4.4

To make the amount or price of something increase

How Deep

to drive down costs
4 3.3
to cut costs
30 3.0

Surface Forms

drive down costs infinitive
drove down costs past
driven down costs past participle
driving down costs present participle
drives down costs third person singular

Morphology

drive + down + cost

The meaning 'to reduce expenses' is directly derivable from combining 'drive' (to push/force) with 'down' (to a lower level) applied to 'costs' (expenses), producing the literal idea of pushing costs lower. This verb+particle construction is a productive, transparent composition and is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words can infer the meaning.

Etymology

Drive down costs gives a clear picture: drive means push and down means lower, so imagine steering a car down a hill and watching the price numbers fall. So it means 'to reduce expenses', especially in business.