The flip side is that we got almost no improvements in energy density for 3 decades. Thank you for the cost reduction, but it is not enough.
The price of lithium-ion batteries has declined by 97% in the last three decades
161–170 of 330 posts
Re: The price of lithium-ion batteries has declined by 97% in the last three decades
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
We used a Lithium D cell in a prototype wireless product at a startup I worked at in 1989. The cells were pre-production samples. I forget the name of the company that was producing them now (I think it was a Japanese company - there were no logos on these batteries), but we were warned not to let them short out as they would go off like a 1/4 stick of dynamite. We were pretty careful with them, but we did have a uni…
How much better than the competition were they then? Did you understand why you were using such a dangerous alternative?
Weight, I suppose. And silver+zinc was likely still more expensive.
Re: The price of lithium-ion batteries has declined by 97% in the last three decades
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've noticed that 12V lithium iron phosphate car-battery replacements tend to be very expensive. I figure part of it is that they need a built-in BMS to keep the cells balanced, but still it seems like there should be cheaper options.
It's not your average BMS that can support 500A cranking currents and horrifically noisy, unstable currents and voltages during charging. I wonder if crashworthiness is a factor as well.
I guess BMSs can vary in terms of what they do, but if it just has to monitor the voltages of the cells and bleed small amounts of current through a resistor if it needs to drop the voltage of one or more cells to keep them balanced, then it doesn't have to be all that complicated, nor handle very much current at a time.
Crashworthiness might be a factor, though... lead acid batteries act sort of like a cushion in an impact, whereas lithium-ion batteries that break can cause worse problems than spilling sulfuric acid all over the engine bay.
Re: The price of lithium-ion batteries has declined by 97% in the last three decades
#164Yes, but their energy density has hardly changed and every gasoline tank beats your average LiIon battery by a factor of 10: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#In_chemical_rea...
Energy density is a meaningless measure for cars. $ per mile isn't. If you have a heavier battery, you just need a bit more of it to drive the same amount of miles. It just boils down to cost in the end. You can also trade weight for mileage and have less battery. That lowers the cost and improves the mileage. Apparently Tesla has pushed internal cost per kwh of storage below 100$ now. That price is going to drop fur…
Most people do most of their charging at home. Our off peak cost at night is 5 cents per kWh. Much, much cheaper than superchargers.
Re: The price of lithium-ion batteries has declined by 97% in the last three decades
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
And when the natural gas runs out you use what?
It doesn’t go out where I live, but you could instead get a diesel generator and not have to worry about utilities
That's not what I meant. Eventually, it will go out for the entire planet. It is not an unlimited resource. Then what?
Re: The price of lithium-ion batteries has declined by 97% in the last three decades
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a sort of meaningless metric, you can adjust your time frame to make the market size arbitrarily small because it was 0 before 1991.
Your parent specifically stated 1991 not "before 1991". I think I understand what you mean but there was also a unfulfilled requirement before 1991. Back then (I'm 50.5 years old) cells didn't explode but then they also didn't set the world alight in terms of longevity either. We had Walkmans and crappy clones that drained the shitty rechargeable cells we had at the time in a few hours. OK those things drove mechanic…
Most of that seems true but orthogonal to my point, which is when comparing states of something with a power law growth, it is really easy to come up with big numbers that don’t contain any real information.
That 50,000x or whatever didn’t really give any information about the growth of a product over thirty years, it only really gives information about the growth during the first year which if it had been marginally different would give you a wildly different value for your “market growth today” number.
We should all be careful not to publish large numbers with dubious sources.
Re: The price of lithium-ion batteries has declined by 97% in the last three decades
#167This is really cool, but could anyone familiar with the domain estimate how far we are along the S-curve? I.e. it took a long time for things to ramp up, then they accelerate really quickly and then they slow down again. Think Moore's Law, which is dead now. What would be the price estimate for 2030, for example. I think we're now around $100 per kwh (or something like that), what should we expect for 2030? $60? $20?
It looks like $156 in 2019 & $137 in 2020. Estimates are $100/kwh by 2023-24 and $58/kwh by 2030. I do wonder how a dramatic shift towards Li powered cars will effect the price. We may see demand outpace supply for a decade or more. I hope it is the other way around because cheap lithium batteries flooding the market would have many positive implications. https://about.bnef.com/blog/battery-pack-prices-cited-below-..…
It's very unlikely that large companies would leave that much money on the table (they will invest in supply).
Re: The price of lithium-ion batteries has declined by 97% in the last three decades
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
> $2000 for a 30kWh home battery backup? Who wouldn't get one? Very few of the people that would currently benefit from a domestic backup battery could afford $2k, and most of the people who do have $2k to spare don’t live in places with unreliable electricity. The overlap isn’t zero, but… for example, I visited Kenya with an ex of mine, we met a local friend of hers, that friend would’ve benefited from a more reliab…
> Very few of the people that would currently benefit from a domestic backup battery could afford $2k, and most of the people who do have $2k to spare don’t live in places with unreliable electricity. My expectation is that with climate change, unreliable electricity is going to affect a lot more places. The polar vortex that knocked out the Texas grid is likely to be a more frequent and more extreme event. ACs runni…
> For example, if the grid could coordinate with your heating and cooling, you could distribute AC usage to avoid tripping the grid.
This is already done. It’s a blunt system, but it is done.
I was offered $5/month off my electric bill to add a device to my AC unit that would be able to turn it off for up to 15 minutes per hour. (I declined, because my AC at that time was not able to keep up even running constantly.)
Re: The price of lithium-ion batteries has declined by 97% in the last three decades
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
> $2000 for a 30kWh home battery backup? Who wouldn't get one? Very few of the people that would currently benefit from a domestic backup battery could afford $2k, and most of the people who do have $2k to spare don’t live in places with unreliable electricity. The overlap isn’t zero, but… for example, I visited Kenya with an ex of mine, we met a local friend of hers, that friend would’ve benefited from a more reliab…
> Very few of the people that would currently benefit from a domestic backup battery could afford $2k California, a state of 40 million people, would disagree with you ;) Not just referencing the blackouts we had last summer: CA also is heavily invested in solar power, and as a result, power is much cheaper during the day than at night (assuming you opt into time of use pricing). A battery for $2k would pay for itsel…
> California, a state of 40 million people, would disagree with you ;)
How explode-y is this battery? I hear California also has this problem with forest fires and it seems a fire and giant batteries all over the place would be two flavors that do not go well with each other.
Re: The price of lithium-ion batteries has declined by 97% in the last three decades
#170Yes, but their energy density has hardly changed and every gasoline tank beats your average LiIon battery by a factor of 10: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#In_chemical_rea...
Lithium-ion is something of an everyday miracle. I'm older and I remember previous rechargeable battery technologies and they were just terrible. Also, Gas and tiny portable batteries have nearly nothing in common. You're not going to be able to fit an ICE into my iphone. What's with the weird comparisons? I don't see how they are helpful. Its like when we talk about hate crimes or civilians killed in war, and other…
>You're not going to be able to fit an ICE into my iphone.
Someone please send this comment to Colin Furze.