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The price of lithium-ion batteries has declined by 97% in the last three decades

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Re: The price of lithium-ion batteries has declined by 97% in the last three decades

#171

Post by simcop2387 »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #102
chrisseaton wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AA is a form-factor, not a chemical technology. You can get lithium AA batteries. You probably mean alkaline cells have not gotten cheaper.

I will second the notion that indeed AA batteries, whether Alkaline, Lithium, or Zinc Carbon, for purchase by consumer at a super-market checkout, have not gone cheaper recently. I will even venture that consumer lithium-ion batteries, such as for camera or laptop replacements, do not appear to have gone cheaper over last, say, decade. I can only assume healthy profit margin by brands (Nikon/Sony/Canon/etc, Lenovo/So…

I'm not quite so sure about that. The prices have remained relatively stable, but the capacities have gone up. I think on a per Wh basis they may have actually gotten cheaper still. That means that you've gotten more battery life and/or more useful power in the devices that are using the batteries.

Re: The price of lithium-ion batteries has declined by 97% in the last three decades

#172

Post by Dylan16807 »

gerdesj wrote: post #129
colechristensen wrote: post #71

Earlier 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…

> 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 mechanical beasties - cassettes but cells/batteries were not particularly good before Li-Ion turned up.

NiMH came out around the same time and it's fine. A good one has similar energy to a good alkaline. Not very far behind a small-cell lithium ion either.

Re: The price of lithium-ion batteries has declined by 97% in the last three decades

#173

Post by [deleted] »

JeffL wrote: post #164
jillesvangurp wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: The price of lithium-ion batteries has declined by 97% in the last three decades

#174

Post by ta2162 »

JeffL wrote: post #164
jillesvangurp wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Our off peak cost at night is 5 cents per kWh.

Must be nice. Triple that in California (where most EVs are).

Re: The price of lithium-ion batteries has declined by 97% in the last three decades

#175

Post by Johnythree »

cogman10 wrote: post #74
ben_w wrote: post #62

Earlier 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…

A 1KWh battery is affordable now using off-the-shelf lead acid batteries.

There is no advantage using Lithium batteries (at present) as size and/or weight is not critical for domestic applications.

The whole point of the discussion is that Lithium is still not cheaper than Lead acid.

Re: The price of lithium-ion batteries has declined by 97% in the last three decades

#176

Post by sgerenser »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #78
cm2187 wrote: post #39

That's not the price of batteries in general, that's the price of Li-Ion batteries. Were Li-Ion batteries mass produced in 1991?

They were not. In 1998, the second edition of Greenwood/Earnshaw's chemistry textbook came out, a magisterial survey of inorganic chemistry. They state that the major use for lithium is in lithium grease, but "looking to the future, Li/FeSx battery systems are emerging as a potentially viable energy storage system ... and a ... source of power for electric cars". The 1991 edition did not talk about batteries at all.

I still remember the PowerBook 5300 series that was released around 1996 and had to be recalled due to reports of fires with their then cutting edge lithium batteries. Apple had to rerelease the product with NiMH batteries IIRC.

Re: The price of lithium-ion batteries has declined by 97% in the last three decades

#177

Post by Johnythree »

SilverRed wrote: post #141
ben_w wrote: post #62

Earlier 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…

> and most of the people who do have $2k to spare don’t live in places with unreliable electricity. A home battery in many places is basically free money. Renewables mean there is an extreme oversupply at some times and an undersupply at others. Owning a battery hooked up to the grid means you buy power at oversupply times where the power goes in to negative pricing and then sell it back at other times in the same da…

Old car batteries are at the end of their life because they have low capacity or have shorted cells.

Re: The price of lithium-ion batteries has declined by 97% in the last three decades

#178

Post by sgerenser »

mkr-hn wrote: post #132
chrisseaton wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AA is a form-factor, not a chemical technology. You can get lithium AA batteries. You probably mean alkaline cells have not gotten cheaper.

Ni-Mh still seems to be the go-to for rechargeable AAs. I rotate four Ni-Mh Eneloops out in my wireless mouse.

NiMH has the advantage of having very similar voltage to alkaline. Lithium ion AA batteries wouldn’t work as direct replacements in a product designed to be powered by alkaline batteries.

Re: The price of lithium-ion batteries has declined by 97% in the last three decades

#179

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

justinator wrote: post #169
reissbaker wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Probably less explody than a propane tank. Turns out that pretty much any form of energy storage can release a bunch of energy in a short time if pushed hard enough.

Re: The price of lithium-ion batteries has declined by 97% in the last three decades

#180

Post by Johnythree »

squarefoot wrote: post #25

Although Li-Ion cells are getting cheaper and cheaper every year, it still is worth salvaging the good ones from depleted laptop battery packs. When a laptop battery pack is gone it's almost always the case of one, max two, 18650 elements that failed, not the whole pack. I've built some good power banks using empty shells (very cheap on Ebay, Aliexpress etc.) and fitting inside the good cells salvaged that way. They…

Parallel cells will automatically balance as the charged cells feed the discharged cells. There is absolutely no point in trying to balance them.
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