Lithium battery costs have fallen by 98% in three decades • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by cbozeman » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 9:56 PM UTC

dmoy wrote: post #132

ip26 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

drawing a line on a graph and saying "look how X Y is gonna be in Z years" is the same exact type of stupid And yet we do it every ~18 months with semiconductors. Imperfect to be sure, but if you don’t skate to where the puck is headed, you will miss opportunity.

> And yet we do it every ~18 months with semiconductors. So, this is about to stop. Very soon. Quantum tunneling, yield rates, etc are all starting to be cost prohibitive. Even if hypothetically it does, there's a very real limit - an atom is only 10x smaller than 2nm.

Not according to Jim Keller. He believes we still have plenty of room, and no offense to you, but I'll take his word before yours.

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

#232

Post by nolok » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 9:57 PM UTC

nardi wrote: post #203

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, using obsolete data from when tech was bleeding edge in 1999 to imply things about cost going forward is misleading. On the other hand using improvement over the same timeline, drawing a line on a graph and saying "look how X Y is gonna be in Z years" is the same exact type of stupid but pointed in a different direction. In 1991 lithium was highly immature technology and would take about a decade to make it into…

These are not the same kind of stupid. One makes the assumption that costs will always be the same, and the other makes the assumption that cost decreases are linear, or predictable. The former is much stupider.

These are the exact same kind of stupid: they assume everything data set will always be constant or linear.

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

#233

Post by cbozeman » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 10:00 PM UTC

hellbannedguy wrote: post #227

chrisseaton wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collision avoidance, speed limiting, adaptive speed limiting, adaptive headlights, lane keeping, blind-spot warning, ISO-FIX anchors, far stronger pillars, reversing cameras, lane exit monitors, SOS buttons and GPS reporting, far more air bags, door-cyclist collision warnings, seat-belt pre-tensioning, some have pre-collision suspension raising, etc, etc, etc. I just went from a 2009 Land Rover to a 2020 Land Rover,…

I have heard horror stories about the mechanical/electrical reliability of Range Rovers. The number one complain has been the powertrain. I know the automatic transmission is the weak spot in most vehicles, but I have heard of complete failures before 100k. Could you give your evaluation of the vehicle?

There's an Australian expression, "If you want to go into the bush, take a Land Rover. If you want to get out of the bush, take a Land Cruiser."

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

#234

Post by baybal2 » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 10:01 PM UTC

noahtallen wrote: post #163

iagovar wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think many middle class jobs can support owning a Tesla Model 3 In a handful of countries.

I can’t disagree with that. I feel like the EV conversation is centered on “richer” countries anyways because of infrastructure and tech. I’d be curious to learn how EVs are being approached in countries which are still developing infrastructure

> I feel like the EV conversation is centered on “richer” countries anyways because of infrastructure and tech.

I'd say EV are making inroads there exactly because of no infrastructure, and tech.

In Vietnam, people choose electric scooters over petrol largely because their maintainance free nature, and no need for fluids, or waiting at petrol pumps.

People like that they don't risk expensive, and lengthy breadown of their scooter when their job depend on it.

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

#235

Post by sbeller » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 10:02 PM UTC

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.

Look at it the other way round: they could reduce losses from 6% to 4%, which lead further savings in needing less cooling tech.

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

#236

Post by chrisseaton » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 10:08 PM UTC

hellbannedguy wrote: post #227

chrisseaton wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collision avoidance, speed limiting, adaptive speed limiting, adaptive headlights, lane keeping, blind-spot warning, ISO-FIX anchors, far stronger pillars, reversing cameras, lane exit monitors, SOS buttons and GPS reporting, far more air bags, door-cyclist collision warnings, seat-belt pre-tensioning, some have pre-collision suspension raising, etc, etc, etc. I just went from a 2009 Land Rover to a 2020 Land Rover,…

I have heard horror stories about the mechanical/electrical reliability of Range Rovers. The number one complain has been the powertrain. I know the automatic transmission is the weak spot in most vehicles, but I have heard of complete failures before 100k. Could you give your evaluation of the vehicle?

Not a Range Rover, sorry, a Defender.

I wouldn't own anything else to be honest. I've always driven one, and I also work professionally with a fleet of them and I don't have any problems at all. My last personal one never needed any work at all over ten years. Even if they were unreliable, if it's the kind of form factor you're after I don't think anything really challenges them on the market.

I think they're also a uniquely egalitarian vehicle - if you see someone driving a Land Rover it could be a farmer, a teenager in their first car, a parent doing the school run, an Army unit on exercise, a professional footballer, literally the Queen, or anything in between. You can drive the same car to the rubbish dump and to Royal Ascot and it looks completely appropriate in both cases! I don't think there's any other vehicle even remotely like that.

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

#237

Post by bluGill » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 10:12 PM UTC

r00fus wrote: post #136

ajuc wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Air conditioning isn't needed in many EU countries except for a few days a year (so it's not worth to even install it in private homes, modern offices mostly have them though for some reason). Also depending on the country few people use cloth driers - you just hang your clothes on a cable and let them dry by themselves. Houses in colder parts of EU are also usually better isolated than in US ([1] that's a typical Po…

Global Warming is changing that. Anecdotally in my observations, more new houses in France now have AC whereas it was rare only 5 years ago.

Global warming is not that much difference. People just can afford ac now so they buy it.

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

#238

Post by minhazm » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 10:13 PM UTC

an_opabinia wrote: post #230

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…

While I agree with you broadly, Tesla loses money on its car business. It was profitable for a full year because of the money it makes from selling carbon credits. That’s not exactly a federal subsidy but it’s not making cars either. So I feel like going at this all angry complaining about imprecision or a lack of focus on details comes off ironic.

This is a common misconception that keeps getting repeated for some reason. It's silly to exclude the regulatory credit income but then also count things like stock based compensation and capitol expenditures for new factory builds.

Tesla did $1.6 billion in regulatory credits in 2020. Tesla stock based compensation in 2020 was $1.7 billion due to Elon Musk's performance based compensation plan and TSLA skyrocketing. So the car business is clearly profitable.

Then there's the capitol expenditure on building out new factories and expanding their production capacity. From Tesla's 2020 Q3 10Q filing:

> we currently expect our capital expenditures to be at the high end of our range of $2.5 to $3.5 billion in 2020 and increase to $4.5 to $6 billion in each of the next two fiscal years.

They're planning on spending up to $12 billion between 2021-2022 to build out new factories and expanding their capacity. Their car business is clearly profitable, they're just spending all of the money to grow.

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

#239

Post by chrisseaton » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 10:16 PM UTC

cbozeman wrote: post #233

hellbannedguy wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have heard horror stories about the mechanical/electrical reliability of Range Rovers. The number one complain has been the powertrain. I know the automatic transmission is the weak spot in most vehicles, but I have heard of complete failures before 100k. Could you give your evaluation of the vehicle?

There's an Australian expression, "If you want to go into the bush, take a Land Rover. If you want to get out of the bush, take a Land Cruiser."

Your special forces still use Land Rovers on operations!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Australian_SOTG_patrol_Oc...

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

#240

Post by an_opabinia » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 10:16 PM UTC

minhazm wrote: post #238

an_opabinia wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with you broadly, Tesla loses money on its car business. It was profitable for a full year because of the money it makes from selling carbon credits. That’s not exactly a federal subsidy but it’s not making cars either. So I feel like going at this all angry complaining about imprecision or a lack of focus on details comes off ironic.

This is a common misconception that keeps getting repeated for some reason. It's silly to exclude the regulatory credit income but then also count things like stock based compensation and capitol expenditures for new factory builds. Tesla did $1.6 billion in regulatory credits in 2020. Tesla stock based compensation in 2020 was $1.7 billion due to Elon Musk's performance based compensation plan and TSLA skyrocketing.…

Is it a misconception? If the credit didn’t exist they would not be profitable. They lose money on the cars. They sell more cars, they lose more money. I like the company and I like electric cars, but I’m not stupid, I’m not misconceiving anything.