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Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading

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Re: Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading

#81

Post by walrus01 »

mikeash wrote: post #37
honkhonkpants wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla consumes a small fraction of global lithium-ion battery production. When the overall market is much larger than the marginal consumption, the assumption that offering more money increases local supply holds perfectly well. Even if you assume that Tesla is demanding 5% of the battery market which would be an outside estimate that's still well within the region where paying more will get you more.

Worldwide production of lithium-ion batteries in 2013 was around 35GWh. The current rate is somewhat higher, I can't quite find how much. Tesla is currently producing around 100,000 cars/year. Each car has about 80kWh of battery on average (the options right now are 75 or 90), so that's about 8GWh. If they meet their goal of 400,000 Model 3s produced in 2018, assuming 55kWh of battery for those cars, that's 22GWh, no…

> Worldwide production of lithium-ion batteries in 2013 was around 35GWh

I don't think measuring it in terms of GWh is the best way to go about it, because a huge number of lithium ion batteries manufactured are NOT the type Tesla needs to use. Their battery packs are composed of 18650 size cylindrical cells.

Vast amounts of LiIon batteries manufactured today are pouch/flat type cells for laptops, tablets, mobile phones and other portable consumer electronics.

I would be very curious to see a number of the total estimated quantity of high-capacity 18650 cells manufactured worldwide in one year vs. the number of 18650 cells consumed by Tesla.

Re: Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading

#82

Post by justina1 »

Shivetya wrote: post #65

So were are only talking about numbers they are hoping for, not currently in production? GMs numbers are current, what are Tesla's current battery costs? Just because they want 100 by 2020 doesn't mean they are leading the charge, simply leading the wish list. Still waiting on density improvements because frankly 400kg for 200 odd miles of range is not good. Of course with higher density means better charging and hop…

Tesla keeps their cost per kWh close to the vest.

Only public statement was in response to an analyst assuming Tesla was at $260. Their investor relations team confirmed they're below $190 (back in April).

http://electrek.co/2016/04/26/tesla-model-3-battery-pack-cos...

Re: Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading

#83

Post by macintux »

daxorid wrote: post #71
macintux wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. I think fusion is more important, but I'll take what I can get.

We have fusion, 1 AU away. Utility PV gives us an EROEI or around 11. That's good enough, such that a focus on storing the output trumps the development of more abundant local production.

The sci-fi I'm most interested is a lot more distant than 1 AU.

Re: Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading

#84

Post by mikeash »

melling wrote: post #68
mikeash wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worldwide production of lithium-ion batteries in 2013 was around 35GWh. The current rate is somewhat higher, I can't quite find how much. Tesla is currently producing around 100,000 cars/year. Each car has about 80kWh of battery on average (the options right now are 75 or 90), so that's about 8GWh. If they meet their goal of 400,000 Model 3s produced in 2018, assuming 55kWh of battery for those cars, that's 22GWh, no…

Tesla hasn't sold 100,000 cars in their entire history. Last year they did sell 50,000 cars. Think they'll double that this year? http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/11/18/how-many-ve...

They've sold well over 100,000 cars. The current total is around 140,000. They project 80,000 or 90,000 this year, with a slow start, so I think their current rate is 100,000 if not higher.

Re: Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading

#85

Post by mikeash »

honkhonkpants wrote: post #80
mikeash wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worldwide production of lithium-ion batteries in 2013 was around 35GWh. The current rate is somewhat higher, I can't quite find how much. Tesla is currently producing around 100,000 cars/year. Each car has about 80kWh of battery on average (the options right now are 75 or 90), so that's about 8GWh. If they meet their goal of 400,000 Model 3s produced in 2018, assuming 55kWh of battery for those cars, that's 22GWh, no…

That analysis is sort of ridiculous. On the numerator you're using a number much higher than the number of cars Tesla has ever produced in a year. On the denominator you're using a years-old size of a rapidly growing market for batteries.

How much do you think the industry has grown since 2013? How much do you think it will grow by 2018? Even if each one is a doubling, Tesla's part is pretty significant.

Re: Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading

#86

Post by back_beyond »

mikeash wrote: post #47
back_beyond wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without cheap energy in the form of coal, how many would die each year?

Do you mean compared to an alternative where people's energy comes from burning wood and dung, or one where energy comes from widespread solar, wind, and storage?

I mean the alternative that would exist today, absent coal.

Re: Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading

#87

Post by DougN7 »

narrator wrote: post #17

I find it amusing to see so many people questioning why Tesla didn't release a cheap Tesla sooner. The answer is: They don't have the batteries to do that. That's why they are building the GigaFactory. People don't get that, on a large industrial scale, you actually have to think about supply. They think you just spend money and supply shows up because they are used to thinking on a household scale where supply is ge…

Yes, exactly this. And it applies in many things, such as guaranteed basic income (what would that do to the money supply, to the labor supply, etc). Too many times we think of specific scenarios but those are misleading unless you take the big picture and all its moving pieces into account.

Re: Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading

#89

Post by tn13 »

I don't see how cars will have any impact on battery life. How many cars do we sell each year? Even if we assume 10% of cars are electric it is nothing but a drop in an ocean in terms of number of batteries being sold.

I am unable to see how Tesla car could have any impact on battery industry in terms of economy of scale. Any battery based solution for homes etc. could possibly bring economy of scale into picture.

Re: Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading

#90

Post by randyrand »

warfangle wrote: post #69
Animats wrote: post #45

From the article: "Since 2008, estimates of battery costs were cut by a factor four and battery energy density had a fivefold increase. " We're not seeing that kind of improvement in mobile devices.

In 2008: The iPhone had an 1150mAh battery and, according to anandtech [0], 284 minutes of talk time (3G) and 400 minutes of web browsing time (WiFi). It weighed 133 grams. In 2016: The iPhone SE has a 1,624mAh battery and gets 556.2[1] minutes of web browsing time on WiFi. It weighs 113 grams. Of course, I have no idea what percentage of weight made up the battery for either of these phones. I also have no idea what…

They say that battery tech has been improving at 2% a year.

That would mean we should see a ~37% improvement between 2008 and 2016. Seems about right.

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