11 comments

[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 38.9 ms ] thread
The article doesn't say what the current cost per kWh is? I'm just curious to contextualize how big of a leap a $100 per kWh cell would be.

Additional question: Does a Lithium-Ion cell for a moving vehicle need to be higher quality/greater tolerance, relative to stationary? Just seems like a Lithium-Ion cell built for a vehicle needs to survive low/high temps, and also a lot of jostling or risk fire/venting.

Regarding the additional question, how often do stationary batteries exist in the wild? Laptops and phones see a lot of jostling and probably some extremes in temperature. I'd imagine the concerns for individual cells may be somewhat universal given the variety of uses we put them to.
There is a difference between Battery Cell and Battery Pack, which the article wasn't very clear although I seriously doubt $100/kwh is for Battery Pack.

Current estimate of Battery Pack is roughly ~$150 / Kwh.

Commenting on your comment, the cost of the battery pack is roughly 70% cells and 30% battery pack. Using those numbers, cells at $100/kwh would result in packs costing roughly $143/kwh, vs the current situation where cells are costing them roughly $105/kwh.

It doesn't seem like enough of a drop to warrant the hyperbole in the article if is a ~5% drop in cell price. Maybe they are talking about making packs for $100/kwh, which would be more impressive.

Given that pack prices have been dropping 18%/yr, pack prices dropping to $100/kwh is about 2.5 years away. Hiring for a production process that matures ~2 years in the future seems feasible. Maybe they are talking about pack prices?

Educated guesses of pack vs cell cost: https://about.bnef.com/blog/behind-scenes-take-lithium-ion-b...

The important point is that if cells get down to $100/kWh, then ev's could have sticker prices equal to ice's. That would cause ev sales to skyrocket, which is absolutely essential for saving the climate.
This is important, but also note that the Model 3 cost ($40k-$60k) is above the average new vehicle price ($35k) and Tesla still can’t build enough to meet demand.

If Tesla hits $100/kWh, combustion vehicles are done. They will never have a lack of buyers while legacy automakers collapse under their exciting capital cost structure (Ford is already in junk territory, and other automakers aren’t far behind).

It's even worse than that, the price to beat is the Honda Fit and Toyota Corolla at about $20k
(comment deleted)
Producing more cars will not save the climate.
Cars and vehicles are going to be produced anyway. There are also vehicles smaller than cars (electric bikes and scooters) and buses (China has already made huge progress with electric buses).

Cheaper batteries also mean emergency gas generators for peak energy usage can be phased out.