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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

#91

Post by zanny »

DougN7 wrote: post #87
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.

To claim that we do not have the industrial supply to meet a basic income of the poverty level (at least in the US) is to also say we do not have the housing or food to sustain ~300 million people above the poverty level.

For the nation that is supposed to be the foremost in the world, and has been supposed to be for a century and a half, if that is true, all our talk of technological innovation and futurism is for naught, because we cannot even house and clothe everyone in our collectively agreed upon minimum possible conditions.

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

#92

Post by outworlder »

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…

> 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.

Interestingly (for me), when I leased my leaf the sales guy was talking about how Nissan could make a car with a much better range, but chose not to. It was amusing hearing it from a (otherwise backwards) dealership.

It makes sense, of course. What I keep wondering is, if energy density (not just cost) increases significantly in the future, couldn't existing electric vehicles be retrofitted with "aftermarket" cells? Currently, resale value is pretty low, mostly due to battery concerns (both longevity - which I think is unfounded - and hopes of better tech). But, with otherwise so low maintenance costs, I figure these cars could have a pretty long life.

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

#93

Post by [deleted] »

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...

[deleted]

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

#94

Post by ethbro »

petra wrote: post #39
ethbro wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree it's a puff piece, but the full quote you took that from is "General Motors announced that battery costs for its 2016 Chevrolet Bolt had fallen to USD 145/kWh by October 2015, and that it hopes to reduce costs below the USD 100/kWh mark by 2022 (GM, 2015, EV Obsession, 2015). The electric car manufacturer Tesla aims to break the USD 100/kWh mark by 2020 (HybridCARS, 2015)." Also, in reading some of the backgrou…

Musk isn't that great at predicting when will the future happen(he's better at predicting general trends), probably partially because stock pumping PR is critical to his biz.

To some extent stock pumping PR funds Tesla, which in turn provides them easier capital for funding the GigaFactory, which rationalizes the PR. It's only Theranos if you don't deliver.

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

#95

Post by mikeash »

back_beyond wrote: post #86
mikeash wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As in, if coal had never been used for energy in human history? How is that relevant?

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

#96

Post by narrator »

walrus01 wrote: post #81
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…

> 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 pho…

This ties neatly into another common economic fallacy: That capital is homogenous. Highly productive capital equipment is specialized, and requires long lead times for its production. It cannot quickly be repurposed for other uses. Thus, it's important that demand is genuine and not the result of "stimulus" that will waste a lot of capital equipment when stimulus is withdrawn.

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

#97

Post by mtgx »

olivermarks wrote: post #54

Look to China for mass production of cost effective batteries, not Tesla... firms like EV West help me demystify the true state of maturity of this market http://evwest.com/catalog/

That's what I'm afraid of. That China will push a "race to the bottom" not on just prices per se, but on lower prices with poorer quality batteries that hold much fewer charges and degrade faster, making you want to dump your EV battery after 3 years. But everyone will be too focused on their promotion of "cheap long range EVs" to notice.

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

#98

Post by frozenport »

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…

Well, if they had more money they could build two gigafactories. So money can definitely help them scale up.

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

#99

Post by honkhonkpants »

mikeash wrote: post #85
honkhonkpants wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's tough to get hard data but a 20-30% CAGR from 2013 to the present time seems like a reasonable guess.

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

#100

Post by outworlder »

walrus01 wrote: post #76
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…

Energy STORAGE is a huge bottleneck issue for anyone that follows renewable energy news as well... Solar power itself has been cheap enough to be viable for a long time, 330W 72-cell panels for roofs have been $0.64/watt for several years now. You can quite economically cover the roof of a building in enough high-efficiency 60 or 72-cell panels to generate far more kWh in a year than the building will consume in the…

How do the LiFePo batteries used in current electric cars change the equation? Not so great energy density, but can withstand an immense number of cycles.
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