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Residual Value: Electric Batteries vs. Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles

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Re: Residual Value: Electric Batteries vs. Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles

#41

Post by swiley »

greglindahl wrote: post #10
URSpider94 wrote: post #7

This is a terrible analysis. First of all, it assumes that the cost of a kWh of battery remains at today's high value. If battery costs are falling rapidly (and they are), then the value of a used battery pack will be driven down as inexpensive new packs come on the market. Second, it ignores the fact that 10-year-old packs will have a substantially higher rate of catastrophic failure than new packs, and if reliabili…

Where does the author give a battery resale value for the Fiat 500e? Since it has a small battery, it degrades much faster per mile than a large battery.

After some googling I actually can't even find a place to buy replacements so I can price them (maybe I'm thinking about this wrong?) For a car, $4k sounds low enough that if it doesn't work out it's not /that/ big a deal. These used EVs sound great for someone that just wants to try the idea out without becoming totally invested.

Re: Residual Value: Electric Batteries vs. Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles

#42

Post by URSpider94 »

greglindahl wrote: post #10
URSpider94 wrote: post #7

This is a terrible analysis. First of all, it assumes that the cost of a kWh of battery remains at today's high value. If battery costs are falling rapidly (and they are), then the value of a used battery pack will be driven down as inexpensive new packs come on the market. Second, it ignores the fact that 10-year-old packs will have a substantially higher rate of catastrophic failure than new packs, and if reliabili…

Where does the author give a battery resale value for the Fiat 500e? Since it has a small battery, it degrades much faster per mile than a large battery.

My point was that these are 3-year-old cars, most with light usage. It's easy to find examples with 15k miles. The packs have held up very well - mine had lost at most 5% of its range, if that. So, assume 22kWh capacity left, that should be worth $4k alone by the author's metrics.

Re: Residual Value: Electric Batteries vs. Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles

#43

Post by URSpider94 »

intrasight wrote: post #39
tveita wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It hasn't happened for mobiles or laptops, and I suspect similar reasons will prevent it from happening for cars. As long as battery life, size and weight are all important to the buyers, manufacturers would rather put in the extra customization work to get a competitive advantage.

Capitalism depends first on competition and then on competitive advantage. We need standards for modular power storage before we can have competition. Look at the competition for standard PC PSUs. Super high-quality and low cost - compared to proprietary power supplies. Compete on quality (life, weight, cycles, etc) within the bounds of a modular standard.

Read The Innovator's Dilemma. Standardization in fact usually comes later, once the component in question has reached commodity status. Until then, if there is a competitive advantage to be gained by customizing, then the market leaders will make that investment to stay out in front. The leaders will either fight or snub standardization.

Referring to the PC industry, the availability of standard components marked the death of the premium desktop business, since these days anyone with two hands and a screwdriver can bolt together a desktop as good as any other. That's great for customers, not so good for incumbents like IBM.

Re: Residual Value: Electric Batteries vs. Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles

#44

Post by Aron »

klodolph wrote: post #25
Aron wrote: post #21

I believe that as batteries get on in in life their rate of decay accelerates. It's not a linear process. Maybe there's room for recovering the raw materials effectively, and I wonder if there are upfront tradeoffs that could be exchanged to make that easier. Musk has repeatedly said that scale cost reductions leads ultimately to material cost limit and it's already up to ~50$\130$ per kwH.

Apparently, recovery of lithium from batteries during recycling is not economical, either in terms of money or energy efficiency. Additionally, lithium batteries are more difficult to recycle due to their complexity and the amount of variation between battery types. Compare this with lead acid batteries. About 99% of lead acid batteries are recycled, and the recycling process itself is rather efficient. http://www.sc…

Too bad it just didn't happen to be easy. I would hold out some hope for recycling simply given that each Tesla model 3 size battery has 3,000$+ of raw materials, and there will be literally billions of cells with identical design to recycle. I would find it an interesting fact of the world that it's cheaper to go back into the Earth's crust to get more than to somehow separate it out from a pre-existing source that is highly concentrated.

Re: Residual Value: Electric Batteries vs. Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles

#45

Post by semi-extrinsic »

daveguy wrote: post #37
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it's terrible; even from TFA's opening paragraph: > if electric utilities were to pay $15,000 per battery, the battery alone in a 10-year-old Tesla would retain more value than an entire vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine (ICE). a) why would a utility pay that much ($2.2/cell) for a bunch of heavily-used 18650s when you can buy lightly-used 18650s on eBay today cheaper? b) if you look up used 20…

a) surprise. Those "lightly used" cells aren't lightly used. Have you ever bought them? Cheap eBay cells are garbage.

Sure, I've bought a few, and my experience is "used LG/Panasonic/etc 18650s" are about as good as "new Ultrafire/TrustFire/etc. 18650s"

Re: Residual Value: Electric Batteries vs. Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles

#46

Post by contingencies »

intrasight wrote: post #15

I am of the opinion that the EV market is going to be held back until we have standard battery packs of known price, quality, and warranty. There's no good reason that this can't be taken on by some standards body. ANSI? Milspec? Please, somebody!

standard battery packs of known price, quality, and warranty

Here in China this is essentially the situation for the huge fleet of e-bikes from various manufacturers.

Re: Residual Value: Electric Batteries vs. Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles

#47

Post by epistasis »

pjc50 wrote: post #27
epistasis wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$4k sounds like a market failure, and probably Chrysler Fiat mismanaging the project. They treat the 500e with utter contempt. If there's 18 kWh of the 24 kWh left, that's just $222/kWh. That would be a fantastic battery system for an off the grid home.

Well, it's a "compliance car": http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/fiat/500/87129/sergio-marchionn... . It would be far better if they took the idea seriously and did a proper electric car. Pity, because I quite like the styling. They're nowhere near that cheap in the UK (ebay has exactly one, at £11,000) while Leaves are widely available. Depreciation seems to be brutal for electric cars, and not just for the battery. It's…

I had one, and absolutely loved it. It was great when I had my own house and could charge easily, and also had space for a second gasoline car that I could use for longer trips. When I moved to an apartment with backwards landlords that wouldn't let me use an outlet by the car, it had to go sadly.

For $4k it's an absolute steal for a daily commuter car. It made me realize that driving could be a fun activity.

Re: Residual Value: Electric Batteries vs. Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles

#48

Post by [deleted] »

pjc50 wrote: post #27
epistasis wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$4k sounds like a market failure, and probably Chrysler Fiat mismanaging the project. They treat the 500e with utter contempt. If there's 18 kWh of the 24 kWh left, that's just $222/kWh. That would be a fantastic battery system for an off the grid home.

Well, it's a "compliance car": http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/fiat/500/87129/sergio-marchionn... . It would be far better if they took the idea seriously and did a proper electric car. Pity, because I quite like the styling. They're nowhere near that cheap in the UK (ebay has exactly one, at £11,000) while Leaves are widely available. Depreciation seems to be brutal for electric cars, and not just for the battery. It's…

[deleted]

Re: Residual Value: Electric Batteries vs. Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles

#49

Post by woodandsteel »

URSpider94 wrote: post #7

This is a terrible analysis. First of all, it assumes that the cost of a kWh of battery remains at today's high value. If battery costs are falling rapidly (and they are), then the value of a used battery pack will be driven down as inexpensive new packs come on the market. Second, it ignores the fact that 10-year-old packs will have a substantially higher rate of catastrophic failure than new packs, and if reliabili…

>it assumes that the cost of a kWh of battery remains at today's high value. If battery costs are falling rapidly (and they are), then the value of a used battery pack will be driven down as inexpensive new packs come on the market

Good point. However, this also means that utilities are going to adopt renewables a lot more since storage will be getting cheaper.

Re: Residual Value: Electric Batteries vs. Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles

#50

Post by intrasight »

URSpider94 wrote: post #43
intrasight wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism depends first on competition and then on competitive advantage. We need standards for modular power storage before we can have competition. Look at the competition for standard PC PSUs. Super high-quality and low cost - compared to proprietary power supplies. Compete on quality (life, weight, cycles, etc) within the bounds of a modular standard.

Read The Innovator's Dilemma. Standardization in fact usually comes later, once the component in question has reached commodity status. Until then, if there is a competitive advantage to be gained by customizing, then the market leaders will make that investment to stay out in front. The leaders will either fight or snub standardization. Referring to the PC industry, the availability of standard components marked the…

IBM realized years ago that there's little value (in their case negative value) in being they guy with a screwdriver.

>The leaders will either fight or snub standardization.

I'll still claim that my PSU analogy applies. The leaders exist because of and welcome the standards. Those that fight and snub will certainly not be leaders.

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