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Lithium battery costs have fallen by 98% in three decades

economist.com

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Re: Lithium battery costs have fallen by 98% in three decades

#111

Post by ninjinxo »

iknowstuff wrote: post #101
minitoar wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there many gains to be had on electric motors? I guess I sort of assumed those had seen quite a bit of optimization already.

> The engineers of Tesla motor's shocked everyone when they abandoned the versatile induction motor in Model 3 cars. They used a totally different motor called IPM-SynRM. Let's understand why the Tesla engineers made this crucial design change. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esUb7Zy5Oio

Hrmm, so the cost and performance is much the same, but it adds value by creating a new talking point for Tesla owners to harangue others with.

Re: Lithium battery costs have fallen by 98% in three decades

#112

Post by aidenn0 »

hristov wrote: post #71

This is important to keep in mind when you read articles and/or studies about how electric cars or wind or solar power is impractical. A lot of the data these studies use is just obsolete. Say you have an opinion piece in a news paper that says that electric cars will always be expensive toys for the rich. It relies on a scientific paper published in a technical journal 2 years ago. The scientific paper does not perf…

There were similar things at the dawn of the jet age. Someone wrote a paper demonstrating that jet power could not improve over propeller power because radial-flow compressors generated too much drag and axial-flow compressors were too inefficient. What the author of the paper didn't know is that, contemporary to him, it was discovered that shaping each blade of an axial-flow compressor like an airfoil significantly improved efficiency. Thus a "physics problem" became a "manufacturing problem"

Re: Lithium battery costs have fallen by 98% in three decades

#113

Post by iagovar »

WebDanube wrote: post #98
baybal2 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Say you have an opinion piece in a news paper that says that electric cars will always be expensive toys for the rich. Well, you don't see poor people buying EVs that much. That's car manufacturer statistics, which I believe deserves a good degree of trust. In the market for new cars, poor people buy cheapest IC cars, but not cheapest EVs. I will take the point that middle class is now buying budget EVs, but you do…

I'm not a free market apologist by any means, but we also didn't see "poor people" or folks in the lower economic strata buy mobile devices and smartphones when they became first available, at least not the scale we're seeing now (without mentioning the fact that the devices were crazy expensive when first launched, adjusting for inflation). Economy of scale is a thing, and imo it's OK to use the rich and the wealthy…

An expensive phone is about 500-1000€. A cheap EV is in the 20K neighborhood, and the functionality is pretty bad compared to a cheap second-hand utility car (pretty hard to travel outside your city). Even when regulations push prices up, it's still far more economical to buy a cheap gas car than a cheap EV.

Even in Europe there are plenty of countries where many people can't afford an EV. They can afford second-hand ICE cars. So unless there can be a second-hand market of EVs for about 6K without worrying about the battery, and with a similar functionality of a second-hand ICE car, then yes, EVs will be for upper income brackets.

And I'm not even mentioning that most people lives in apartment buildings, and it's very likely that your car sleeps in the street.

I've seen this discussions around here. People won't buy EVs in the near future because they are expensive, have very low range, you have to have a house, or own a flat (because nobody will pay for a charger installation in a rented flat) with garage, etc.

What people is buying is little electric Scooters. Most of them are <500€ and you can charge em everywhere. It makes sense for travelling inside a city. Spending 20K for not being able to go from Santiago to Madrid, doesn't make any sense.

Re: Lithium battery costs have fallen by 98% in three decades

#114

Post by fulafel »

minitoar wrote: post #80
hristov wrote: post #71

This is important to keep in mind when you read articles and/or studies about how electric cars or wind or solar power is impractical. A lot of the data these studies use is just obsolete. Say you have an opinion piece in a news paper that says that electric cars will always be expensive toys for the rich. It relies on a scientific paper published in a technical journal 2 years ago. The scientific paper does not perf…

Are there many gains to be had on electric motors? I guess I sort of assumed those had seen quite a bit of optimization already.

They are so close to 100% efficiency that the possible gains are modest.

Re: Lithium battery costs have fallen by 98% in three decades

#115

Post by Gibbon1 »

baybal2 wrote: post #86
hristov wrote: post #71

This is important to keep in mind when you read articles and/or studies about how electric cars or wind or solar power is impractical. A lot of the data these studies use is just obsolete. Say you have an opinion piece in a news paper that says that electric cars will always be expensive toys for the rich. It relies on a scientific paper published in a technical journal 2 years ago. The scientific paper does not perf…

> Say you have an opinion piece in a news paper that says that electric cars will always be expensive toys for the rich. Well, you don't see poor people buying EVs that much. That's car manufacturer statistics, which I believe deserves a good degree of trust. In the market for new cars, poor people buy cheapest IC cars, but not cheapest EVs. I will take the point that middle class is now buying budget EVs, but you do…

> you don't see poor people buying EVs that much

Poor people buy 5 to 15 year old used cars. There aren't that many 5-15 year old used EV's.

Yet.

Re: Lithium battery costs have fallen by 98% in three decades

#116

Post by fulafel »

umvi wrote: post #56
Someone wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or houses not in the USA. http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/average-household-electricity... : “The average American or Canadian household in 2010 used about twenty times more than the typical Nigerian household, and two to three times more than a typical European home”

Why is that? Is it because North Americans use electricity for cooking and heating whereas other countries use gas for that?

US housing is very roomy, often features AC and poor insulation, and electricity is cheap and avergae incomes are high.

Re: Lithium battery costs have fallen by 98% in three decades

#117

Post by iagovar »

noahtallen wrote: post #99
baybal2 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Say you have an opinion piece in a news paper that says that electric cars will always be expensive toys for the rich. Well, you don't see poor people buying EVs that much. That's car manufacturer statistics, which I believe deserves a good degree of trust. In the market for new cars, poor people buy cheapest IC cars, but not cheapest EVs. I will take the point that middle class is now buying budget EVs, but you do…

There’s still a large difference between upper-middle class and upper class. I think many middle class jobs can support owning a Tesla Model 3 or other mid-range new car but not a Porsche. When I hear “expensive toy for the rich”, I think of a millionaire’s 3rd lambo, not Bill’s Silverado lease. Initial Teslas were sports cars, and now it’s squarely in middle class territory. Still a big improvement and a big market,…

> I think many middle class jobs can support owning a Tesla Model 3

In a handful of countries.

Re: Lithium battery costs have fallen by 98% in three decades

#118

Post by aaronblohowiak »

fulafel wrote: post #114
minitoar wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there many gains to be had on electric motors? I guess I sort of assumed those had seen quite a bit of optimization already.

They are so close to 100% efficiency that the possible gains are modest.

what is the cost of the motor vs the cost of the input materials? what % of the cost of a vehicle is the cost of the electric motor? My understanding (however limited here) is that car-worthy motors are still priced at a bit of a premium to their input materials, but it doesnt really matter because overall they are still not that expensive compared to batteries.

Re: Lithium battery costs have fallen by 98% in three decades

#119

Post by audunw »

baybal2 wrote: post #86
hristov wrote: post #71

This is important to keep in mind when you read articles and/or studies about how electric cars or wind or solar power is impractical. A lot of the data these studies use is just obsolete. Say you have an opinion piece in a news paper that says that electric cars will always be expensive toys for the rich. It relies on a scientific paper published in a technical journal 2 years ago. The scientific paper does not perf…

> Say you have an opinion piece in a news paper that says that electric cars will always be expensive toys for the rich. Well, you don't see poor people buying EVs that much. That's car manufacturer statistics, which I believe deserves a good degree of trust. In the market for new cars, poor people buy cheapest IC cars, but not cheapest EVs. I will take the point that middle class is now buying budget EVs, but you do…

> Well, you don't see poor people buying EVs that much.

You don't see poor people buying new cars that much. Which for now is pretty much the same thing as not buying EVs, since almost all EVs on the road are relatively new.

That's starting to change here in Norway. There's a decent amount of used EVs entering the second-hand market. And if you can deal with the short range it's definitely preferable to buy one, since they're way more reliable than on older used ICE.

The other things helping people buy cheaper EVs here is that it's easier to deal with the shorter range since you have fast charging stations everywhere now.

So what needs to improve is: - More used EVs (just have to get middle class people to buy more EVs and wait 5-10 years) - Better charging infrastructure (again, get the middle class to buy EVs to help fund the build-out) - Cheaper EV batteries (again, just get whoever can to buy more EVs, to fund R&D and drive economies of scale)

That's why it's so damaging when countries make EV incentives with caps. Just make it a percentage of the price (or cut all taxes) and don't worry about the benefits going to rich people buying luxury EVs. Increase income taxes on the rich instead if that's a problem. This is like the one case where trickle-down economics kind of work, since buying expensive EVs now makes future EVs and charging stations cheaper.

And I think cheap BEVs will be a HUGE benefit to poor people in the future, since it saves on gas and maintenance costs in the long term.

Re: Lithium battery costs have fallen by 98% in three decades

#120

Post by nickik »

aszantu wrote: post #38

lithium is just cheap because it wrecks some 3rd world countries natural resources. If they'd slap the price of recovery times it will need to regrow nature in that place, it wouldn't be as cheap.

This is mostly nonsense.

The majority of lithium in battery comes from West Australia. Its fairly conventional hard rock mining.

There are some environmental concerns in the production of lithium carbonate from evaporation ponds in deserts of South America. However to say that it 'wrecks' 3rd world countries natural resources is a bit of an odd statement.

The only real issue is that evaporation ponds use water from underground aquifer. This is very salty mineral rich water and the water use is not as high as farming would be and there is a lot of these aquifers.

In the future, as lithium consumption growth much of the growth will come from more hard rock mining in mostly first world countries, clay mining (unlimited amounts all over the world) and direct lithium extraction (gigantic amounts of extraditable lithium in aquifers all over the world) from aquifers where the water is pumped right back, just with half as much lithium in it.

Evaporation ponds are basically a legacy technology and the boom in lithium will likely mean that they are gone be phased out over the next couple decades in favor of DLE.

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