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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

#91

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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

You do, however, see upper middle class people buying them. Which wasn't the case a decade ago, when the Leaf came out [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf

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

#92

Post by 908B64B197 »

supernova87a wrote: post #87

I'm pretty interested to know what parts of this cost have hit their practical limit, and which still have cost to be squeezed out? -- Mineral scarcity/cost of mining -- Cost of processing, refining lithium -- Cost of making battery chemical contents -- Cost of assembling rest of complete battery Any info on how much more advance there is to go on these aspects? And, after all that is squeezed out, is lithium still g…

I also wonder how much work it is to recondition older battery packs.

Weight and volume is really important for a car, but for a residential installation? Not so much.

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

#93

Post by bobthepanda »

sgt wrote: post #70
tyingq wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Tesla Powerwall 2 weighs 114.0 kg and provides 13.5 kWh. Average US household electricity consumption is 877 kWh/month, which would be 29kWh/day. Either they mean a very efficient/small house, or homeowners with unusually frugal habits. Edit: Average UK household electricity consumption appears to be around 10kWh/day.

South Africa here. Our house uses about 20 kWh a day during the summer, with some minor AC usage in one of the rooms when needed. During the winter probably about 30kWh, and that excludes extra costs like wood for fireplace. My house is fully insulated and all windows are double glazed, so that keeps energy usage more efficient. I also have a solar heater (aka "geyser") which lowers energy costs even more. So with th…

They might be just using less electricity but other means to generate their needs.

I've heard that the EU has a lot more district heating (which wouldn't show up in an electricity bill, AFAIK) and I'd imagine a fair deal of older buildings have a boiler using oil or gas or something else to burn.

AC is also just not very prevalent.

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

#94

Post by 908B64B197 »

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…

How about hybrids like Priuses?

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

#96

Post by baybal2 »

supernova87a wrote: post #87

I'm pretty interested to know what parts of this cost have hit their practical limit, and which still have cost to be squeezed out? -- Mineral scarcity/cost of mining -- Cost of processing, refining lithium -- Cost of making battery chemical contents -- Cost of assembling rest of complete battery Any info on how much more advance there is to go on these aspects? And, after all that is squeezed out, is lithium still g…

Ones which can be squeezed more

> -- Cost of making battery chemical contents

> -- Cost of assembling rest of complete battery

Mining, and refining is pretty efficient at this point, even when Chinese dominate the market. It's cathode materials which is the single biggest cost point. Cathode materials are dominated by Japanese companies, especially nickel based ones.

LFP is so cheap because making cathode powder for them is a fairly low-tech process with many Chinese garage scale chem companies jumping on it 10 years ago.

Nickel based cathodes are on other hand fairly hard to make with competitive capacities because control of particle size, structure, and shape is a tightly held chemical black magic.

For this reason, I don't expect the new generation of 200WH/kg+ LFP cathodes to be that cheap in comparison to nickel ones.

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

#97

Post by neolog »

Retric wrote: post #90
neolog wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cost per what?

Cost per kWh and weight per kWh. But, also cost and weight per home as the home’s energy needs are largely unchanged.

The graph that's interesting for homes is cost per kWh but the page doesn't show that.

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

#98

Post by WebDanube »

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…

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 as 'guinea pigs' of sorts (which mostly is voluntary as the wealthy are more likely to make riskier bets on new tech than people living paycheck-to-paycheck).

As EV market extends downwards on the economic 'pecking order,' I'm really hoping even more drastic cost reduction and lower barriers of entry into the EV market for folks that are not rich.

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

#99

Post by noahtallen »

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…

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, and in several years, that leads to a good second-hand market and even cheaper EVs.

I think for many (not all, of course) people the problem is not price as much as practicality. I could probably be convinced to spend more for an EV, but without chargers in most apartment buildings and with limited charging networks where I might go, it’s not justifiable yet.

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