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As I see it, in a few years time the market for batteries for electic cars will be a little like the market for DRAM or Flash today. The upfront costs to be ab
by mhandley 8y ago
As I see it, in a few years time the market for batteries for electic cars will be a little like the market for DRAM or Flash today. The upfront costs to be able to produce competitively at volume are very high, and although the market is large, there will be just enough competition and cells will be commodity enough that profit margins will be both slim and volatile. I'd much rather be in the business of making cars to use those batteries, where there's potential to differentiate your product with good design (like say, Apple in computers and phones) than in the business of making batteries.
- raphaelj 8y agoWhile this kind of commodity products might not make huge profits, it might still be a huge provider of low to mid class jobs.
- marak830 8y agoOr, more likely I'm home, a huge provider for robotics line production suppliers
- Latteland 8y agoLooking out 5 years, there will be significant battery shortages blocking the legacy automobile manu. from making EVs in volume to compete with Tesla and Chinese companies. It will take 5 years if they start building new factories soon to get them in production - and they don't seem to be hurrying. So in another 5 years, I see the Europeans (BMW, Merc, Audi/Porsche/VW) will stop arguing away the hit to their sales (did you see what Tesla did to them in q3!?) and react, but it will be late. Same thing for other American manufacturers. Some Japanese companies like Leaf are already getting with the program. So for the first 5 years, it will be like the days when there wasn't enough ram to go around, and it got more expensive and valuable like right after a technology transition. But in 10 years we should be back to more widespread production. Whether much of that is in the US or Europe or its all in Japan on China remains to be seen.