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Battery Pack Prices Fall As Market Ramps Up

375 points by howard941 7y ago

choeger 7y ago
And we are not even close to the scale of an industry with world-wide relevance. Semiconductors is a nearly 500billion$ industry for example. If batteries reach 100billion$ we could probably expect prices well below 50$/kwh. That means you can put a sufficiently large powerwall into your home for around the price of a new laptop. That in turn enables homeowners to generate most of their energy needs themselves via (also cheap) pv arrays. This technology has the chance to completely turn around the home energy market.
- luis8 7y ago
  Wouldnt prices of the grid go down as well? The grid could switch to a storage model too. Making it not that attractive to deal with all the maintenance.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    With renewables knocking on 1 cent/kwh at utility scale, retail prices will go down, and the majority of the cost will be storage and transmission. You might expect prices to be higher at night (the reverse of now), as more of the light vehicle fleet moves to EVs and everyone charges their cars at night (unless you can incentivize workplace charging, when the sun is shining).
    - perilunar 7y ago
      > You might expect prices to be higher at night For people with rooftop solar and no batteries, that's already the case (depending on the feed-in tariff of course). Saw an article about this today: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-05/solar-panels-rebates-energy-is-it-worth-it/11738270 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-05/solar-panels-rebates-...
      - toomuchtodo 7y ago
        Yeah, definitely going to see tariffs disfavor rooftop solar (utilities don't want to be the "battery" if they can avoid it), which is going to increase battery uptake rate (to consume your own generation first instead of export it for no value to the grid), which will drive battery prices down faster.
  - AtlasBarfed 7y ago
    If there's that much storage in cars if a large % of transport switches over, especially consumer commuters with long-range batteries, perhaps a service can allow EV owners to get paid to allow their daily commute cars to store excess solar in the day and stream it back at night.
    - basch 7y ago
      At what point does switching to something more trolleybus like, where your car charges while driving down the road, maybe in contact with a rail, make more sense than all this self driving and battery capacity? Even if it was just interstates.
      - toomuchtodo 7y ago
        Likely never (if you look at Tesla's luxury vehicles almost at 400 miles of range [S and X with Raven drivetrains] and their Supercharger charge rates [0-80% SOC in ~15-20 minutes]). Battery capacity per kg and charge rates are likely to improve faster than coordinating the deployment of nationwide rail or overhead wire electrical infrastructure on interstates (a Supercharger station only takes about two weeks to install, and costs ~$150k-200k). https://supercharge.info/map https://supercharge.info/map
        Jamwinner 7y ago
        Yes, but energy density is terrible. You are having to move 3x the weight not to mention the huge effincicy hit . You arent taking reality into account.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
        jsight 7y ago
        The Model 3 weighs hundreds of lb more than its equivalent in an ICE car, not 3x as much. These numbers are still improving as well.
  - germinalphrase 7y ago
    Maybe not. I’ve heard that the fixed costs of a traditional grid are substantial enough that if large numbers of homeowners moved to PV generation the grid costs could become unsustainable and ultimately unmaintainable/collapse.
    - abraae 7y ago
      The grid would not collapse but instead would evolve (maybe wiping out whole swatches of companies and utilities in the process but so what). Many people won't (or can't) install their own PV/storage, but everyone needs electricity. Those without PV and/or storage will need to purchase their electricity from others. The mechanism for getting the electricity from seller to purchaser will be a grid of some sort. La plus ca change and all that.
    - kjksf 7y ago
      Or the company maintaining the grid will raise prices. If you had to make the choice between "no electricity to power my fridge, my lights, my laptop" vs "pay double for the electricity", you'll pay double. If people respond rationally, this would lead to re-designing the grid to be more decentralized and maintain the lower cost of energy we get from solar.
    - mr_toad 7y ago
      This a largely an accounting problem. Most consumers pay by kWh, with no separation between generation and transmission cost components. If more people generated their own power, they’d have to seperate out the generation and transmission costs.
      - cobookman 7y ago
        PGE & Peninsula Clean Energy already breaks out transmission and generation costs. Most the costs are for transmission. https://www.peninsulacleanenergy.com/for-residents/ https://www.peninsulacleanenergy.com/for-residents/ https://www.peninsulacleanenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/PCE_EcoPlus_Sample_Bill.pdf https://www.peninsulacleanenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017...
      - 7y ago
  - marcosdumay 7y ago
    I imagine cities will stay centralized. There is some money selling electricity from large plots to small ones (and apartment), a nice amount of it on selling from houses to industry, and a huge amount of it on intermediating the PV and storage transactions. But cheap batteries will probably means a large downsizing on the large distance distribution grid.
  - jillesvangurp 7y ago
    Grid prices will go down as demand goes down when people start producing and storing energy themselves. With the cost of solar panels and batteries dropping and production capacity growing exponentially while prices continue to drop, the grid will be less important but still essential to many. It will also accelerate the demise of coal, gas, and nuclear as they are already too expensive and will have no chance whatsoever in an open market where prices are trending down massively over the next decades. The status quo of course is that they are effectively state protected monopolies currently in many places, which will slow things down in some places and is also the reason you get to pay many times the actual market price per kwh.
    - 9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
      If people still need the grid but don't oat for anymore, then the prices go up since the powerline companies are usually required to maintain them. It doesn't matter than you need power only 8 days a year few kw.
- stefan_ 7y ago
  Oil is a $70 trillion industry and yet a barrel of crude is currently $60. What does that mean? Nothing. You are just creating a faux correlation between two prices with no justification.
  - tlamponi 7y ago
    Yeah, and a barrel of oil is about 1.7 MWh, so the proportion seems to be about right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrel_of_oil_equivalent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrel_of_oil_equivalent OP gave an implicit justifications, bigger industry can mean that the goal to more efficient produce gets backed by more $€£, and thus gets reached more faster - at least if no monopoly will be created (as then the consumer is screwed 100%).
  - cjohnson318 7y ago
    It currently costs about $10-12 million to drill and produce a well in West Texas. The fact that a barrel of crude is only ~$60 is absolutely mind-boggling.
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      The current crude price is due to a worldwide glut in the oil market along with weakening demand growth, OPEC facing forces that are causing it to make production missteps it has no choice but to make, and US shale having to pump to service debt they've overextended themselves with. Chesapeake Energy, previously an O&G industry darling, is struggling under $9 billion in crushing debt, and has made statements they may not be able to continue as a going concern. At the same time, investors are not so interested in overly optimistic and aggressive well depletion projections. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-oil-opec/opec-extends-oil-cut-to-prop-up-prices-as-economy-weakens-idUSKCN1TW1LF https://www.reuters.com/article/us-oil-opec/opec-extends-oil... (OPEC extends oil cut to prop up prices as economy weakens) https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-08/the-world-s-oil-glut-is-much-worse-than-it-looks https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-08/the-wo... (The World’s Oil Glut Is Much Worse Than It Looks)
      - 7y ago
- retrovm 7y ago
  I think this is an important point. The lithium-ion battery market is _still_ smaller than the lead-acid battery market. This business is still ramping up.
  - Enginerrrd 7y ago
    Wow, really? I've got dozens of Li-ion batteries in my house and only two lead-acid. One in my truck and one I use as a backup power supply for my radio equipment.
    - retrovm 7y ago
      Well, estimates I can google up at the moment put the Pb-acid worldwide market at ~$42bn/year and the Li-ion market at ~$40bn/year. The latter is growing much faster but the former is also growing.
    - jartelt 7y ago
      Lead acid batteries are used in pretty much everything ICE vehicle and are used in large quantities as uninterruptible power supplies (data centers use a ton). It's a huge industry.
      - slfnflctd 7y ago
        They're cheap, simple (don't require a complex BMS), predictable/safe, have a long-enough lifetime and are easy to recycle. The biggest drawback really is weight - and thereby shipping cost - but for long term stationary applications that doesn't matter. Lithium Ion attached to a supercapacitor with a sophisticated BMS is a much more complex setup-- yet even so, it will probably end up being the gold standard in the long run at this point, I would say even in most places lead-acid is still being used. I would not have predicted anything like that even five years ago, but barring some unlikely breakthrough it seems like where we're headed.
        oceanplexian 7y ago
        Honestly it’s just market inefficiencies at this point. I build battery packs for drones and RC planes and the lead acid stuff is just garbage. They can’t perform to more than 60% of their rated capacity and then start voltage sagging. The energy density is pitiful. A small UPS under your desk with LiFePo4 cells would outperform the lead acid 3-4x for the same space and last longer for the same or less money.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  How are you comparing the cost to fill a powerwall with consumable energy, to a durable good like a laptop?
  - choeger 7y ago
    By overallocating. In Europe, most homes can do well with 10kwh daily electric energy. Make that 20 to be on the safe side. To fill that reliably you might need something between 10 and 50kwp solar energy. Everything can be bought once.
- m463 7y ago
  I've thought it could not only change the home energy market, but housing. Housing could become much more distributed, as people could live independently where they chose. (not that socially they would do that)
  - Aaron_Putnam 7y ago
    This still relies on bureaucratic changes - in many jurisdictions, connecting to the grid is mandatory. That's the current situation in Australia, for example: https://reneweconomy.com.au/the-40-australian-towns-that-could-and-should-quit-the-grid-93813/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/the-40-australian-towns-that-cou...
    - m463 7y ago
      In the US these restrictions are usually tied to nearby cities. The larger but sparsely populated unincorporated areas don't require (or have) utilities.
  - BurningFrog 7y ago
    I'd guess electricity is only 1 of ~20 things I need civilization for.
  - erikpukinskis 7y ago
    > (not that socially they would do that) Factor in that once VR headsets hit MVP status, you won’t need to commute for basic “we need you to be in a room with these people to talk to them” tasks, it becomes even more plausible. What happens to the property market if “you don’t need to commute to be in meetings” comes true?
    - sjy 7y ago
      What makes you think that VR will deliver on the remote work dream where videoconferencing failed? I don’t think the 2D nature of videoconferencing is the problem here.
  - pjc50 7y ago
deepsun 7y ago
By 2030, dollar inflation can easily make $100 battery to cost $60 alone.
- mediaman 7y ago
  Deflation would result in lower nominal prices, not inflation.
  - deepsun 7y ago
    My mistake, thank you.
colechristensen 7y ago
What happens when that much energy is so cheap and every home has what amounts to a sizable bomb inside? There will sure be plenty of them which aren't actually certified and the failure rate of any consumer product is never zero. How are the positives of a distributed storage grid offset by the negatives of the technologies?
- altcognito 7y ago
  Natural gas leaks are worse.
- timerol 7y ago
  Are you comfortable parking your car inside of your garage? Even with a full tank of gas? Safety issues are real, but they have been solved before and are being solved now
  - colechristensen 7y ago
    I've seen cars burn, they don't explode like the movies, they burn. Like a couch. Lithium batteries are much more energetic about their failures, "explode", and they can do so with only minor electrical or mechanical mistreatment. A car in my garage is cold, outside of very odd situations it is not going to spontaneously ignite. Cars burn in accidents or when you are running them, not randomly in the middle of the night. The "proper" safety for a large lithium battery pack is in a concrete sarcophagus or similar vessel capable of shielding and containing a catastrophic failure.
    - steelframe 7y ago
      > Cars burn in accidents or when you are running them, not randomly in the middle of the night. My co-worker's nanny's car, a new Subaru, burst into flames in her driveway while it was just sitting without the engine running. Non-crash fires occur so frequently that the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) produces a Noncrash Fire Losses Report, and insurance companies calculate premiums based on that data. https://www.iihs.org/media/c93b98d8-6a7d-44a1-810e-4468ec539e05/uIu4tg/HLDI%20Research/Fire%20losses/HLDI_FireLosses_1218.pdf https://www.iihs.org/media/c93b98d8-6a7d-44a1-810e-4468ec539...
AtlasBarfed 7y ago
Has cost-effective density improvements stalled? The last really significant announcement out of the main Tesla university research group was in cycles lifetime. The suggested range of many Tesla forthcoming models (truck, roadster2) seem to assume a chemistry improvement, as well as other future announcements by less experienced (in EV) manufacturers. I personally speculate that the Nurburgring Model S prototype beat the Porsche using a substantially lighter battery to get its 20 second advantage, but I have no confirmation on that.
- jsight 7y ago
  Its all relative... the Model 3 battery is significantly more energy dense than the Model S battery and appears to be lighter weight. How much of this is packaging (2170 vs 18650 form factors) vs chemistry improvements is really hard to know. It is widely believed that the Model S prototype was using a much larger battery with 2170 cells and likely at either the same or a somewhat lower weight than the previous Model S. The truck has the benefit of being tall, so the pack is multilevel. The roadster will use at least two levels as well as it has a very thick pack, and obviously at its price point they can afford to use the absolute highest density cells on the market.
  - xiphias2 7y ago
    Tesla managed to halven the relative cobalt content in each iteration (Roadster -> Model S -> Model 3), and Elon hinted that Tesla wants to go Cobalt free, as it’s an expensive conflict mineral.
Ididntdothis 7y ago
Let’s hope at the same time we are building up a corresponding recycling infrastructure and products to be recycled easily. Otherwise I am afraid we are building up another trash problem.
- AtlasBarfed 7y ago
  Lithium will be very valuable and motivate recycling for quite a wile. I don't think this will be a problem, certainly not more than the current disposal pipeline for ICE cars.
- Tade0 7y ago
  There was no such problem with lead-acid batteries, so I don't there will ever be with li-ion.
  - Jamwinner 7y ago
    Lead is stupidly easy to recycle. There are videos of people doing it on streetcorners in india. Lithium, not so much.
  - hueving 7y ago
    Well nobody tried to use lead-acid batteries for storage of anything on the significance of grid base-load and replacing a huge chunk of transportation energy capacity.
    - wongarsu 7y ago
      For decades we have used lead-acid batteries in close to every backup power solution of any size, plus at least one lead-acid battery per vehicle. Of course we expect lithium-ion to surpass lead-acid in market size and number of deployed batteries, but the amount of lead-acid batteries in the world is nothing to sneeze at either.
  - hanniabu 7y ago
    The difference is that a bunch of trinkets have lithium batteries in them and are very difficult to remove, whereas it's mostly vehicles that use lead acid batteries and they're designed to be easily removed. Also you tend to replace lead acid batteries and continue to use the product while with lithium you tend to throw out the product when the battery is dead. This combination makes recycling much more difficult, although I'm sure you'll be able to catch most of this with general electronics recycling.
whb07 7y ago
This.... can’t be true, can someone contact the mods? Competition leads to better products and it’s cheaper?
opwieurposiu 7y ago
I have bought a few used electric car batteries for diy solar projects on ebay recently. I have paid $200-$250/kwh. For example a Tesla Model S battery module, 24V, 250Ah,5.2kWh, Panasonic 18650 3200mAh cell is going for $1,045.00 + 150 shipping. That is $229/kwh shipped. For most of these batteries you will also have to buy a BMS and/or cell balancer.
- mdorazio 7y ago
  That seems kind of expensive still. Grid power is around 7 cents / kwh for comparison so you need over 3,000 hours of usage to break even on a depreciating battery. Or for comparison, new 18650 cells are around $2 each in bulk, so you could get almost the same kwh storage (probably 5% less) for the same price, with a lot more cycles left.
  - cma 7y ago
    I don't know how much it adds, but the Tesla model S module has to have rigidity for the car and some puncture resistance etc. that might not be needed in a power application right? It also may need to have a much higher peak discharge and charging rate and cooling to accommodate that.
    - mdorazio 7y ago
      That's true. A vehicle-grade battery pack should also already come with the wiring built in so you can charge and discharge all the cells from a single point without having to make your own harness. Still, though, I'm not convinced buying a used Model S battery pack is a good deal unless you have an application that specifically needs it.
  - m463 7y ago
    grid power where? For PG&E in california, grid power is .23/.29/.51 per kwh (tiers depending on usage)
    - mdorazio 7y ago
smh58 7y ago
Yet somehow AA and AAA battery prices remain constant through generations.
- myself248 7y ago
  Anyone still using non-rechargeable AA's and AAA's deserves it.
  - SigmundA 7y ago
    Sorry I have tried to get off them but for infrequently used devices they are much better, they can be stored for long periods and are still good, rechargeable will self discharge and be dead when you go to use and probably wont recharge anymore. Rechargeables require a float charge if being stored. I just replaced a 9v in my infrared thermometer that finally died after 4 years...
    - ericd 7y ago
      That's not true anymore, the new nimh cells like Panasonic eneloops can sit on a shelf for 10+ years and have most of their charge left (70% after 10 years according to their packaging).
  - Wh1skey 7y ago
    non-rechargeable batteries are still superior in convenience and cost for any commercial business that requires their use
- francisofascii 7y ago
  Not really. Discount chains sell them for $1 for a 4 pack.
  - OrgNet 7y ago
    I just paid $13 for 60x Rayovaks AA at Walmart.com... but it's still too much
- 7y ago
ericvanular 7y ago
Awesome news, storage is so crucial to decarbonization. Some really interesting emerging energy storage tech has been presented and discussed over at https://collective.energy https://collective.energy if this kind of stuff interests you
- AtlasBarfed 7y ago
  https://investors-corner.bnpparibas-am.com/investment-themes/sri/petrol-eroci-petroleum-age/ https://investors-corner.bnpparibas-am.com/investment-themes... That aligns with my theory that since all the easily extracted oil has been exploited, the oil industry is saddled with a price floor, and once alternatives beat that, the oil industry will rapidly collapse as supply is more expensive than alternatives, and oil won't have any way to profitably compete.
  - ericvanular 7y ago
    Would love to have your voice on the platform
  - Gibbon1 7y ago
    If you look at the energy return on investment over time, it's something like 125:1 in 1920. Dropped into 25:1 in 1970. Now at less than 15:1 maybe lower.
jayess 7y ago
Thank you capitalism!
- Wh1skey 7y ago
  If only more people understood that capitalism is a 10x greater force for the environment and society.. instead many push for greater regulations and taxes, further hindering progress and innovation. Our focus in politics should specifically be against the prevention of chrony capitalism somehow.
- subject117 7y ago
  If only more people understood that capitalism is a 10x greater force for the environment and society.. instead many push for greater regulations and taxes, further hindering progress and innovation. Our focus in politics should specifically be against the prevention of chrony capitalism somehow.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  Thank you US government consumer subsidy!
Lramseyer 7y ago
This makes me wonder how falling battery prices will affect the cost of used electric vehicles. On one hand, the replacement battery costs will go down, and in turn should make for better resale value (since the replacement cost of a wearable part is factored into the resale value.) But on the other hand, auto companies (especially Tesla) have been passing that savings down to the customer, leading to cheaper brand new prices of vehicles. While it may appear on the surface that Tesla has not reduced their prices all that much, keep in mind that the only current offering for the Model S is the 100KWh battery. The Model 3 prices have been incrementally decreasing, while simultaneously standardizing features like autopilot, which used to be a $2K upgrade.
- tway009 7y ago
  Another problem is the fast pace of innovation. Tesla aside, most electric vehicles will be outdated in 3-5 years (I say that as an e-Golf owner/lessee) because the next generation of vehicles will be much better. I think we're in the iPhone 3G phase and have a couple iterations/generations of fast evolution ahead until the market stabilizes.
  - pretendscholar 7y ago
    That doesn't really make sense. It really is a mostly mature product as the components like doors, windows, steering are mostly mature. Cars have been produced for a long time and this is just another marginal improvement on the same concept. Its a car and it gets you to your destination relatively comfortably. Not that much different than other cars.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    This is good though. The faster the values of EVs decline, while still having hundreds of thousands of miles of service life ahead of them, the faster they're affordable on the used car market (choking out ICE vehicles) to those of less means.
  - mikestew 7y ago
    We own one of the first Nissan Leafs off the line. When we're done with it, I will happily give it to someone (because resale on these is already next to nothing) if it replaces their ICE car. And an old electric is something that I theorize would be perfect for the less wealthy. An old beater ICE has to be more trouble and expense than on old EV with a usable battery. Even if it only goes 40 miles in its old age, at least it will do those 40 miles reliably.
batterystd 7y ago
Tangential but I hope some standards body would at least standardize phone batteries. Maybe 10 different sizes going by lbh? Right now every single phone has it's own specific battery.
- minhazm 7y ago
  To what benefit? Companies make their own batteries so they can fit exactly how much they want/need. The real estate in a phone is very valuable and even a few percent difference in the battery size can be enough to impact what other components they put in.
readhn 7y ago
This is interesting times we live in. True Energy independence could turn world politics upside down. The only solution for big oil to survive is to take over big battery business. Interesting what they will come up with!
- aphextron 7y ago
  >True Energy independence could turn world politics upside down. We have true energy independence in the US. And it has turned world politics upside down. Fracking and LNG has made the US a net energy exporter over the last 10 years.
  - readhn 7y ago
    US is not whole world. It will be interesting to see when smaller nations (outside of G8) become truly energy independent. THAT will turn everything upside down once more.
gilead2297 7y ago
If there is anyone on here who works in the battery production, EV, or utility industries, can you comment on exactly what is driving the dramatic cost/kWh declines? Every article I've read seems to imply that the cost declines are just being driven by economies of scale (massive fixed costs of plant construction being averaged out over large production runs) and learning economies (https://rameznaam.com/2014/09/30/the-learning-curve-for-energy-storage/ https://rameznaam.com/2014/09/30/the-learning-curve-for-ener...). Apart from these two forces, are there any innovations in manufacturing processes or product components+architecture that are partly responsible for the decline? Edit: grammar.
- ZeroGravitas 7y ago
  There was a paper that analysed the source of PV cost declines. Would be interesting to see the same for batteries: Evaluating the causes of cost reduction in photovoltaic modules https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2891516 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2891516
- rb808 7y ago
  the OP references the bloomberg article which does say economies of scale, but also "thanks to improvements in manufacturing equipment and increased energy density at the cathode and cell level" https://about.bnef.com/blog/battery-pack-prices-fall-as-market-ramps-up-with-market-average-at-156-kwh-in-2019/ https://about.bnef.com/blog/battery-pack-prices-fall-as-mark...
- chemeng 7y ago
  Raw material prices have declined pretty dramatically in the last 18-24 months (cobalt, lithium,etc).
- gibolt 7y ago
  It certainly helps when there is a small number of suppliers, one giant manufacturing center, and one nearby consumer. Removing all of the supply chain middlemen in search of buyers, repeatedly producing the same manufacturing machinery, and reducing shipping costs are each chipping away part of the cost.
- 7y ago
subject117 7y ago
Besides more electric cars, what else could we expect from “electrification”?
- WorldMaker 7y ago
  Potentially more decentralized or at least time-smoothed electric grids. More batteries can mean greater independence between production means and consumption time. (The obvious case is better time shifting of things like wind or solar power.)
  - layoric 7y ago
    "time-smoothed electric grids". Exactly, this is actually where Lithium batteries make the most sense, especially with solar. It isn't to provide 100% backup output at a grid/utility scale but to make output more consistent when it comes to voltage variance and output. Time shifting power output even by minutes via storage combined with solar forecasting (disclaimer: I work for a solar forecasting company), from what I can tell, can remove a large chunk of uncertainty. The better the forecasting, the smaller the battery can be whilst maintaining low levels of uncertainty. Grid scale "backup" via Lithium batteries IMO, doesn't make any sense. Generating hydrogen from excess power for grid scale generation actually does make sense. As power generation gets cheaper still and the "now" value of it also becomes less, I think it will make financial sense to locally "bank" energy in the form of hydrogen for versatile use during peak times where grids are overloaded with renewable energy (and wholesale price is 0 or negative which is common quite often in some networks).
- sremani 7y ago
  The second and third order effects are a bit hard to predict. Electric fork lifts ?! Cheaper Plastics .. Oil moving from transportation to Chemical sector .. collapse of petro-states .. its going to be interesting.
- thinkcontext 7y ago
  Natural gas appliances replaced by electric ones, usually in some form of a heat pump.
JimmyRuska 7y ago
Laptop batteries can still be premium item. Especially Dell. If you don't buy a business class laptop, it's very likely you cannot order the battery online. You have to call dell support. Dell support is an India call center that will ask for $70 for a shipping label so you can send the machine in to get diagnosed, even if the bios is saying battery health is poor and you don't need a diagnosis. They refuse to just sell you a new battery from the phone or online. They refuse to give you a cost estimate because they want you to have sunk cost before they give an expensive quote. You send in the machine and it's $60 for battery and $80 for servicing. Aliexpress has the batteries for $20 but there's horror stories about exploding batteries. You can easily pay $200/yr if you want to keep your machines at 50% charge or better. Be sure to see how easy it is to switch a battery before buying a new laptop.
- novok 7y ago
  How about third party repair people like louis rossman? They will probably do it for the proper price and not give you bullshit.
Animats 7y ago
As a rule of thumb, a 10x increase in production of something halves the price. Purely through economies of scale. Much of what's been seen in lithium-ion batteries is just that. Has Tesla got their act together with their US "Gigafactory" in Nevada yet? They had a lot of problems, most of them in plant management related to starting up a big plant in an isolated area.[1] Plus feuding with Panasonic.[2] Eventually somebody will get this right, and there will be automated plants with very few employees. This is the ideal situation for automation - making huge numbers of identical products. It just takes a long time to get the automation working. A big problem in the US is that few people go into manufacturing engineering. It's a big thing in China, but not in the US. Average pay for manufacturing engineers is about $78K, according to Glassdoor. Senior level, maybe $82K. This is for a job which today requires understanding real-time computer control, electronics, mechanical engineering, and organizational behavior. [1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2019/12/04/tesla-elon-musk-reno-gigafactory-theft-nevada-investigation-report/2610328001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2019/12/04/tesla-e... [2] https://electrek.co/2019/10/09/tesla-panasonic-relationship-hits-hard-times-tesla-make-own-batteries/ https://electrek.co/2019/10/09/tesla-panasonic-relationship-...
- rwmurrayVT 7y ago
  There are a lot of engineers that work in manufacturing. Typically they'd be referred under controls and automation or maybe industrial engineering.
  - dver 7y ago
    Controls Eng for plant level PLC/HMI, Automation Eng for interconnect with the higher layers (SCADA/MES/ERP/Cloud) is the general wording I see. But, yeah lots of mix and match with those words. In the middle of architecting the systems for a new pack line myself.
  - bigger_cheese 7y ago
    Here in Australia "Process Engineer" is used a lot for this type of role.
- 7y ago
dang 7y ago
Url changed from https://www.utilitydive.com/news/battery-prices-fall-nearly-50-in-3-years-spurring-more-electrification-b/568363/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/battery-prices-fall-nearly-..., which points to this.
anon1m0us 7y ago
This has not been my experience as a consumer trying to buy 18650 batteries for my 3.3V ESP-8266 projects. Is there a good place to buy these? Searching Amazon for them shows me tons of AA and AAA batteries but no actual 18650's. In the past couple years, the price has gone up for me and the availability down. Are there better options? I've read about 26650's but I have never tried them. Do they last longer? Are they safer? Can I charge them in my NiteCore charger that works great for 18650's? How can a consumer/tinkerer wanting to scale up production take advantage of these options? The prices may have gone down at Tesla scale, but not at consumer scale.
- ripexz 7y ago
  Wild guess here but maybe those specific types of batteries went up due to popularity of vaping as they're standard in most mods.
  - cududa 7y ago
    I mean, people at first scoffed at the idea of GPU prices rising in 2013 and 2017/18 due to crypto mining (both times!)
- skyyler 7y ago
  What are you typing into amazon to only find AA? If I type "18650" into amazon I get multiple options for manufacturer, chemistry, and capacity. As well, there are a handful of websites that specialize in selling battery cells, do a web search for "18650 for sale" 26650 cells have higher capacity and max current numbers than 18650s on average but your 18650 charger likely won't have prongs long enough to reach the pads. If they were long enough, it would charge just fine.
- esterly 7y ago
  Jehu Garcia is a good reference for batter deals ( note discount code "JEHU" )https://kit.co/jehu/black-friday-deals-2019 https://kit.co/jehu/black-friday-deals-2019 found via his channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD7tYQd4XE4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD7tYQd4XE4
- 7y ago
uoaei 7y ago
The situation in Bolivia probably had a significant effect. There's lots of lithium mines there. The new (read: coup) government knows this I'm sure and is looking to get rich off of it at the expense of the indigenous population.
- sek 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_lithium_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_lithium_p... Right now Bolivia only has huge reserves. You also have to be able to extract it efficiently. Look at Venezuela, their reserves are huge but their oil is much more difficult to extract. Also the lithium market is complex, there are many different grades. The impact of raw lithium price on battery prices are just ~30%. So the current political situation has probably no effect at all.
  - uoaei 7y ago
    Ah, I was mistaken. I thought they were extracting it.
- jiofih 7y ago
  Bolívia produces ~0.2% of lithium today. It’s not even in the top 10 for reserves (US, Mexico, Australia). There is no way it can have an impact on global prices unless they ramp up production by > 100x.
jacquesm 7y ago
Consider that I paid $US 7500 for a 48KWh lead-acid battery pack not that long ago, this is a very impressive development.
gok 7y ago
In 2012 it was expected we'd be at $160/kWh by 2025[1]. Instead we're below that by 2019. I wouldn't be surprised if that $100/kWh by 2023 prediction from the source isn't too conservative. [1] https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/our-insights/battery-technology-charges-ahead https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/o...
- woodandsteel 7y ago
  And once that happens, it is going to turn the auto industry upside down. Some ice companies like VW realize this and are rushing like crazy to be ready when it happens. The companies that aren't doing this today are likely going to go bankrupt.
  - dangrossman 7y ago
    I don't think so. Things just don't move that fast in the auto industry. Each car generation lasts 4-8 years. The average age of cars on the road right now is 12 years old. It's taken 10 years to get to 2% EV market share in new vehicle sales even with enormous subsidies. At $100/kWh, a car with 300 miles of range will still have a $7500+ battery, which is too much for sub-$20K cars to still be sub-$20K cars: unless every single auto maker abandons the low-end of the market, someone's going to still be making gas cars for those buyers. There won't be an electric car charger on every street and every parking spot at every apartment building for decades at best, which means people without their own garage to charge in will not be clamoring to switch to much less convenient (for them) electric cars. People will still be buying and driving gas cars and non-plugin hybrids for a very long time, no matter how fast battery prices fall.
    - gok 7y ago
      The sub-$20k new car segment is tiny and shrinking.
    - woodandsteel 7y ago
      I strongly disagree. One problem with your sub-20k market argument is that battery prices are going to keep falling, so in a few more years ev sticker prices are going to be equivalent. Another is that most sub-$20k manufacturers make a large part of their income from more expensive cars, and so for that reason will be in grave danger of bankruptcy. As for chargers, the number is expanding rapidly, for a variety of reasons. That means every year that goes buy there are more people who are in a position to buy an ev. Yes, ice's will keep selling, but the numbers will be going down which means that the economies of scale that present manufacturers depend for profits will no longer be there. They will also be stuck with fixed expenses. That means to make a profit they will have to raise prices, which will just drive sales down faster. Also resale prices will plummet, which will give drivers more of a motivation to buy an ev. Also governments concerned with climate change, which is basically every large developed country besides Russia and the present US federal administration, will be pushing ev's and punishing ice's (like is already going on in China). As for your point the auto industry moves slowly, that is why many companies will go bankrupt.
frankus 7y ago
If this scales down to under a kilowatt-hour it means even a large ebike/scooter/etc. pack could move to double-digit US dollars in the next few years.
- StudentStuff 7y ago
  Most eBike batteries are half to 3/4ths a kilowatt hour, though if prices were lower you'd almost certainly see 1kwh & 2kwh batteries becoming standard. The market is already headed this way, EM3ev keeps putting out larger and larger packs at the same price points year after year.
1-6 7y ago
Better personal transportation devices, warm coats, extra-long battery life on all electronics. I sense a nomadic lifestyle for everyone.
- readhn 7y ago
  excellent point! and falling real estate prices - people will distribute out of the cities in search of lower land prices and "cleaner" life style.
tehjoker 7y ago
This is great news. Still, we must end support for the coup in Bolivia that is in part driven by international hunger for lithium.
- bromuro 7y ago
  Yeah few here seems consider the social and environmental costs of batteries. Disappointing.
- tim333 7y ago
  Whatever major commodity you look at there are going to be some bad guys involved in its production somewhere.
- 9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
  That is stupid conspiracy theory, lithium is cheap. Cobalt is what makes the price, so keep an eye on Congo. But done if the social problems thanks to Cobalt are already welly known there.
jupp0r 7y ago
No mention of Lithium and Cobalt rare earth mining. Are these resources abundant enough to support this ramp up without counter balancing economics of scale savings?
m0zg 7y ago
Semi-relevant question: there are many battery-based "generators" up to 500Wh on Amazon. Are there any in the 1.5-2KWh range? We often get outages during winter and it'd be good to have something that could drive a furnace for a day or so.

375 points by howard941 7y ago

And we are not even close to the scale of an industry with world-wide relevance. Semiconductors is a nearly 500billion$ industry for example. If batteries reach 100billion$ we could probably expect prices well below 50$/kwh. That means you can put a sufficiently large powerwall into your home for around the price of a new laptop. That in turn enables homeowners to generate most of their energy needs themselves via (also cheap) pv arrays. This technology has the chance to completely turn around the home energy market.

luis8 7y ago
Wouldnt prices of the grid go down as well? The grid could switch to a storage model too. Making it not that attractive to deal with all the maintenance.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  With renewables knocking on 1 cent/kwh at utility scale, retail prices will go down, and the majority of the cost will be storage and transmission. You might expect prices to be higher at night (the reverse of now), as more of the light vehicle fleet moves to EVs and everyone charges their cars at night (unless you can incentivize workplace charging, when the sun is shining).
  - perilunar 7y ago
    > You might expect prices to be higher at night For people with rooftop solar and no batteries, that's already the case (depending on the feed-in tariff of course). Saw an article about this today: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-05/solar-panels-rebates-energy-is-it-worth-it/11738270 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-05/solar-panels-rebates-...
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      Yeah, definitely going to see tariffs disfavor rooftop solar (utilities don't want to be the "battery" if they can avoid it), which is going to increase battery uptake rate (to consume your own generation first instead of export it for no value to the grid), which will drive battery prices down faster.
- AtlasBarfed 7y ago
  If there's that much storage in cars if a large % of transport switches over, especially consumer commuters with long-range batteries, perhaps a service can allow EV owners to get paid to allow their daily commute cars to store excess solar in the day and stream it back at night.
  - basch 7y ago
    At what point does switching to something more trolleybus like, where your car charges while driving down the road, maybe in contact with a rail, make more sense than all this self driving and battery capacity? Even if it was just interstates.
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      Likely never (if you look at Tesla's luxury vehicles almost at 400 miles of range [S and X with Raven drivetrains] and their Supercharger charge rates [0-80% SOC in ~15-20 minutes]). Battery capacity per kg and charge rates are likely to improve faster than coordinating the deployment of nationwide rail or overhead wire electrical infrastructure on interstates (a Supercharger station only takes about two weeks to install, and costs ~$150k-200k). https://supercharge.info/map https://supercharge.info/map
      - Jamwinner 7y ago
        Yes, but energy density is terrible. You are having to move 3x the weight not to mention the huge effincicy hit . You arent taking reality into account.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
        jsight 7y ago
        The Model 3 weighs hundreds of lb more than its equivalent in an ICE car, not 3x as much. These numbers are still improving as well.
- germinalphrase 7y ago
  Maybe not. I’ve heard that the fixed costs of a traditional grid are substantial enough that if large numbers of homeowners moved to PV generation the grid costs could become unsustainable and ultimately unmaintainable/collapse.
  - abraae 7y ago
    The grid would not collapse but instead would evolve (maybe wiping out whole swatches of companies and utilities in the process but so what). Many people won't (or can't) install their own PV/storage, but everyone needs electricity. Those without PV and/or storage will need to purchase their electricity from others. The mechanism for getting the electricity from seller to purchaser will be a grid of some sort. La plus ca change and all that.
  - kjksf 7y ago
    Or the company maintaining the grid will raise prices. If you had to make the choice between "no electricity to power my fridge, my lights, my laptop" vs "pay double for the electricity", you'll pay double. If people respond rationally, this would lead to re-designing the grid to be more decentralized and maintain the lower cost of energy we get from solar.
  - mr_toad 7y ago
    This a largely an accounting problem. Most consumers pay by kWh, with no separation between generation and transmission cost components. If more people generated their own power, they’d have to seperate out the generation and transmission costs.
    - cobookman 7y ago
      PGE & Peninsula Clean Energy already breaks out transmission and generation costs. Most the costs are for transmission. https://www.peninsulacleanenergy.com/for-residents/ https://www.peninsulacleanenergy.com/for-residents/ https://www.peninsulacleanenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/PCE_EcoPlus_Sample_Bill.pdf https://www.peninsulacleanenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017...
    - 7y ago
- marcosdumay 7y ago
  I imagine cities will stay centralized. There is some money selling electricity from large plots to small ones (and apartment), a nice amount of it on selling from houses to industry, and a huge amount of it on intermediating the PV and storage transactions. But cheap batteries will probably means a large downsizing on the large distance distribution grid.
- jillesvangurp 7y ago
  Grid prices will go down as demand goes down when people start producing and storing energy themselves. With the cost of solar panels and batteries dropping and production capacity growing exponentially while prices continue to drop, the grid will be less important but still essential to many. It will also accelerate the demise of coal, gas, and nuclear as they are already too expensive and will have no chance whatsoever in an open market where prices are trending down massively over the next decades. The status quo of course is that they are effectively state protected monopolies currently in many places, which will slow things down in some places and is also the reason you get to pay many times the actual market price per kwh.
  - 9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
    If people still need the grid but don't oat for anymore, then the prices go up since the powerline companies are usually required to maintain them. It doesn't matter than you need power only 8 days a year few kw.
stefan_ 7y ago
Oil is a $70 trillion industry and yet a barrel of crude is currently $60. What does that mean? Nothing. You are just creating a faux correlation between two prices with no justification.
- tlamponi 7y ago
  Yeah, and a barrel of oil is about 1.7 MWh, so the proportion seems to be about right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrel_of_oil_equivalent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrel_of_oil_equivalent OP gave an implicit justifications, bigger industry can mean that the goal to more efficient produce gets backed by more $€£, and thus gets reached more faster - at least if no monopoly will be created (as then the consumer is screwed 100%).
- cjohnson318 7y ago
  It currently costs about $10-12 million to drill and produce a well in West Texas. The fact that a barrel of crude is only ~$60 is absolutely mind-boggling.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    The current crude price is due to a worldwide glut in the oil market along with weakening demand growth, OPEC facing forces that are causing it to make production missteps it has no choice but to make, and US shale having to pump to service debt they've overextended themselves with. Chesapeake Energy, previously an O&G industry darling, is struggling under $9 billion in crushing debt, and has made statements they may not be able to continue as a going concern. At the same time, investors are not so interested in overly optimistic and aggressive well depletion projections. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-oil-opec/opec-extends-oil-cut-to-prop-up-prices-as-economy-weakens-idUSKCN1TW1LF https://www.reuters.com/article/us-oil-opec/opec-extends-oil... (OPEC extends oil cut to prop up prices as economy weakens) https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-08/the-world-s-oil-glut-is-much-worse-than-it-looks https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-08/the-wo... (The World’s Oil Glut Is Much Worse Than It Looks)
    - 7y ago
retrovm 7y ago
I think this is an important point. The lithium-ion battery market is _still_ smaller than the lead-acid battery market. This business is still ramping up.
- Enginerrrd 7y ago
  Wow, really? I've got dozens of Li-ion batteries in my house and only two lead-acid. One in my truck and one I use as a backup power supply for my radio equipment.
  - retrovm 7y ago
    Well, estimates I can google up at the moment put the Pb-acid worldwide market at ~$42bn/year and the Li-ion market at ~$40bn/year. The latter is growing much faster but the former is also growing.
  - jartelt 7y ago
    Lead acid batteries are used in pretty much everything ICE vehicle and are used in large quantities as uninterruptible power supplies (data centers use a ton). It's a huge industry.
    - slfnflctd 7y ago
      They're cheap, simple (don't require a complex BMS), predictable/safe, have a long-enough lifetime and are easy to recycle. The biggest drawback really is weight - and thereby shipping cost - but for long term stationary applications that doesn't matter. Lithium Ion attached to a supercapacitor with a sophisticated BMS is a much more complex setup-- yet even so, it will probably end up being the gold standard in the long run at this point, I would say even in most places lead-acid is still being used. I would not have predicted anything like that even five years ago, but barring some unlikely breakthrough it seems like where we're headed.
      - oceanplexian 7y ago
        Honestly it’s just market inefficiencies at this point. I build battery packs for drones and RC planes and the lead acid stuff is just garbage. They can’t perform to more than 60% of their rated capacity and then start voltage sagging. The energy density is pitiful. A small UPS under your desk with LiFePo4 cells would outperform the lead acid 3-4x for the same space and last longer for the same or less money.
lonelappde 7y ago
How are you comparing the cost to fill a powerwall with consumable energy, to a durable good like a laptop?
- choeger 7y ago
  By overallocating. In Europe, most homes can do well with 10kwh daily electric energy. Make that 20 to be on the safe side. To fill that reliably you might need something between 10 and 50kwp solar energy. Everything can be bought once.
m463 7y ago
I've thought it could not only change the home energy market, but housing. Housing could become much more distributed, as people could live independently where they chose. (not that socially they would do that)
- Aaron_Putnam 7y ago
  This still relies on bureaucratic changes - in many jurisdictions, connecting to the grid is mandatory. That's the current situation in Australia, for example: https://reneweconomy.com.au/the-40-australian-towns-that-could-and-should-quit-the-grid-93813/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/the-40-australian-towns-that-cou...
  - m463 7y ago
    In the US these restrictions are usually tied to nearby cities. The larger but sparsely populated unincorporated areas don't require (or have) utilities.
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  I'd guess electricity is only 1 of ~20 things I need civilization for.
- erikpukinskis 7y ago
  > (not that socially they would do that) Factor in that once VR headsets hit MVP status, you won’t need to commute for basic “we need you to be in a room with these people to talk to them” tasks, it becomes even more plausible. What happens to the property market if “you don’t need to commute to be in meetings” comes true?
  - sjy 7y ago
    What makes you think that VR will deliver on the remote work dream where videoconferencing failed? I don’t think the 2D nature of videoconferencing is the problem here.
- pjc50 7y ago

deepsun 7y ago

By 2030, dollar inflation can easily make $100 battery to cost $60 alone.

mediaman 7y ago
Deflation would result in lower nominal prices, not inflation.
- deepsun 7y ago
  My mistake, thank you.

colechristensen 7y ago

What happens when that much energy is so cheap and every home has what amounts to a sizable bomb inside? There will sure be plenty of them which aren't actually certified and the failure rate of any consumer product is never zero. How are the positives of a distributed storage grid offset by the negatives of the technologies?

altcognito 7y ago
Natural gas leaks are worse.
timerol 7y ago
Are you comfortable parking your car inside of your garage? Even with a full tank of gas? Safety issues are real, but they have been solved before and are being solved now
- colechristensen 7y ago
  I've seen cars burn, they don't explode like the movies, they burn. Like a couch. Lithium batteries are much more energetic about their failures, "explode", and they can do so with only minor electrical or mechanical mistreatment. A car in my garage is cold, outside of very odd situations it is not going to spontaneously ignite. Cars burn in accidents or when you are running them, not randomly in the middle of the night. The "proper" safety for a large lithium battery pack is in a concrete sarcophagus or similar vessel capable of shielding and containing a catastrophic failure.
  - steelframe 7y ago
    > Cars burn in accidents or when you are running them, not randomly in the middle of the night. My co-worker's nanny's car, a new Subaru, burst into flames in her driveway while it was just sitting without the engine running. Non-crash fires occur so frequently that the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) produces a Noncrash Fire Losses Report, and insurance companies calculate premiums based on that data. https://www.iihs.org/media/c93b98d8-6a7d-44a1-810e-4468ec539e05/uIu4tg/HLDI%20Research/Fire%20losses/HLDI_FireLosses_1218.pdf https://www.iihs.org/media/c93b98d8-6a7d-44a1-810e-4468ec539...

AtlasBarfed 7y ago

Has cost-effective density improvements stalled? The last really significant announcement out of the main Tesla university research group was in cycles lifetime. The suggested range of many Tesla forthcoming models (truck, roadster2) seem to assume a chemistry improvement, as well as other future announcements by less experienced (in EV) manufacturers. I personally speculate that the Nurburgring Model S prototype beat the Porsche using a substantially lighter battery to get its 20 second advantage, but I have no confirmation on that.

jsight 7y ago
Its all relative... the Model 3 battery is significantly more energy dense than the Model S battery and appears to be lighter weight. How much of this is packaging (2170 vs 18650 form factors) vs chemistry improvements is really hard to know. It is widely believed that the Model S prototype was using a much larger battery with 2170 cells and likely at either the same or a somewhat lower weight than the previous Model S. The truck has the benefit of being tall, so the pack is multilevel. The roadster will use at least two levels as well as it has a very thick pack, and obviously at its price point they can afford to use the absolute highest density cells on the market.
- xiphias2 7y ago
  Tesla managed to halven the relative cobalt content in each iteration (Roadster -> Model S -> Model 3), and Elon hinted that Tesla wants to go Cobalt free, as it’s an expensive conflict mineral.

Ididntdothis 7y ago

Let’s hope at the same time we are building up a corresponding recycling infrastructure and products to be recycled easily. Otherwise I am afraid we are building up another trash problem.

AtlasBarfed 7y ago
Lithium will be very valuable and motivate recycling for quite a wile. I don't think this will be a problem, certainly not more than the current disposal pipeline for ICE cars.
Tade0 7y ago
There was no such problem with lead-acid batteries, so I don't there will ever be with li-ion.
- Jamwinner 7y ago
  Lead is stupidly easy to recycle. There are videos of people doing it on streetcorners in india. Lithium, not so much.
- hueving 7y ago
  Well nobody tried to use lead-acid batteries for storage of anything on the significance of grid base-load and replacing a huge chunk of transportation energy capacity.
  - wongarsu 7y ago
    For decades we have used lead-acid batteries in close to every backup power solution of any size, plus at least one lead-acid battery per vehicle. Of course we expect lithium-ion to surpass lead-acid in market size and number of deployed batteries, but the amount of lead-acid batteries in the world is nothing to sneeze at either.
- hanniabu 7y ago
  The difference is that a bunch of trinkets have lithium batteries in them and are very difficult to remove, whereas it's mostly vehicles that use lead acid batteries and they're designed to be easily removed. Also you tend to replace lead acid batteries and continue to use the product while with lithium you tend to throw out the product when the battery is dead. This combination makes recycling much more difficult, although I'm sure you'll be able to catch most of this with general electronics recycling.

whb07 7y ago

This.... can’t be true, can someone contact the mods? Competition leads to better products and it’s cheaper?

opwieurposiu 7y ago

I have bought a few used electric car batteries for diy solar projects on ebay recently. I have paid $200-$250/kwh. For example a Tesla Model S battery module, 24V, 250Ah,5.2kWh, Panasonic 18650 3200mAh cell is going for $1,045.00 + 150 shipping. That is $229/kwh shipped. For most of these batteries you will also have to buy a BMS and/or cell balancer.

mdorazio 7y ago
That seems kind of expensive still. Grid power is around 7 cents / kwh for comparison so you need over 3,000 hours of usage to break even on a depreciating battery. Or for comparison, new 18650 cells are around $2 each in bulk, so you could get almost the same kwh storage (probably 5% less) for the same price, with a lot more cycles left.
- cma 7y ago
  I don't know how much it adds, but the Tesla model S module has to have rigidity for the car and some puncture resistance etc. that might not be needed in a power application right? It also may need to have a much higher peak discharge and charging rate and cooling to accommodate that.
  - mdorazio 7y ago
    That's true. A vehicle-grade battery pack should also already come with the wiring built in so you can charge and discharge all the cells from a single point without having to make your own harness. Still, though, I'm not convinced buying a used Model S battery pack is a good deal unless you have an application that specifically needs it.
- m463 7y ago
  grid power where? For PG&E in california, grid power is .23/.29/.51 per kwh (tiers depending on usage)
  - mdorazio 7y ago

smh58 7y ago

Yet somehow AA and AAA battery prices remain constant through generations.

myself248 7y ago
Anyone still using non-rechargeable AA's and AAA's deserves it.
- SigmundA 7y ago
  Sorry I have tried to get off them but for infrequently used devices they are much better, they can be stored for long periods and are still good, rechargeable will self discharge and be dead when you go to use and probably wont recharge anymore. Rechargeables require a float charge if being stored. I just replaced a 9v in my infrared thermometer that finally died after 4 years...
  - ericd 7y ago
    That's not true anymore, the new nimh cells like Panasonic eneloops can sit on a shelf for 10+ years and have most of their charge left (70% after 10 years according to their packaging).
- Wh1skey 7y ago
  non-rechargeable batteries are still superior in convenience and cost for any commercial business that requires their use
francisofascii 7y ago
Not really. Discount chains sell them for $1 for a 4 pack.
- OrgNet 7y ago
  I just paid $13 for 60x Rayovaks AA at Walmart.com... but it's still too much
7y ago

ericvanular 7y ago

Awesome news, storage is so crucial to decarbonization. Some really interesting emerging energy storage tech has been presented and discussed over at https://collective.energy https://collective.energy if this kind of stuff interests you

AtlasBarfed 7y ago
https://investors-corner.bnpparibas-am.com/investment-themes/sri/petrol-eroci-petroleum-age/ https://investors-corner.bnpparibas-am.com/investment-themes... That aligns with my theory that since all the easily extracted oil has been exploited, the oil industry is saddled with a price floor, and once alternatives beat that, the oil industry will rapidly collapse as supply is more expensive than alternatives, and oil won't have any way to profitably compete.
- ericvanular 7y ago
  Would love to have your voice on the platform
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  If you look at the energy return on investment over time, it's something like 125:1 in 1920. Dropped into 25:1 in 1970. Now at less than 15:1 maybe lower.

jayess 7y ago

Thank you capitalism!

Wh1skey 7y ago
If only more people understood that capitalism is a 10x greater force for the environment and society.. instead many push for greater regulations and taxes, further hindering progress and innovation. Our focus in politics should specifically be against the prevention of chrony capitalism somehow.
subject117 7y ago
If only more people understood that capitalism is a 10x greater force for the environment and society.. instead many push for greater regulations and taxes, further hindering progress and innovation. Our focus in politics should specifically be against the prevention of chrony capitalism somehow.
Spooky23 7y ago
Thank you US government consumer subsidy!

Lramseyer 7y ago

This makes me wonder how falling battery prices will affect the cost of used electric vehicles. On one hand, the replacement battery costs will go down, and in turn should make for better resale value (since the replacement cost of a wearable part is factored into the resale value.) But on the other hand, auto companies (especially Tesla) have been passing that savings down to the customer, leading to cheaper brand new prices of vehicles. While it may appear on the surface that Tesla has not reduced their prices all that much, keep in mind that the only current offering for the Model S is the 100KWh battery. The Model 3 prices have been incrementally decreasing, while simultaneously standardizing features like autopilot, which used to be a $2K upgrade.

tway009 7y ago
Another problem is the fast pace of innovation. Tesla aside, most electric vehicles will be outdated in 3-5 years (I say that as an e-Golf owner/lessee) because the next generation of vehicles will be much better. I think we're in the iPhone 3G phase and have a couple iterations/generations of fast evolution ahead until the market stabilizes.
- pretendscholar 7y ago
  That doesn't really make sense. It really is a mostly mature product as the components like doors, windows, steering are mostly mature. Cars have been produced for a long time and this is just another marginal improvement on the same concept. Its a car and it gets you to your destination relatively comfortably. Not that much different than other cars.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  This is good though. The faster the values of EVs decline, while still having hundreds of thousands of miles of service life ahead of them, the faster they're affordable on the used car market (choking out ICE vehicles) to those of less means.
- mikestew 7y ago
  We own one of the first Nissan Leafs off the line. When we're done with it, I will happily give it to someone (because resale on these is already next to nothing) if it replaces their ICE car. And an old electric is something that I theorize would be perfect for the less wealthy. An old beater ICE has to be more trouble and expense than on old EV with a usable battery. Even if it only goes 40 miles in its old age, at least it will do those 40 miles reliably.

batterystd 7y ago

Tangential but I hope some standards body would at least standardize phone batteries. Maybe 10 different sizes going by lbh? Right now every single phone has it's own specific battery.

minhazm 7y ago
To what benefit? Companies make their own batteries so they can fit exactly how much they want/need. The real estate in a phone is very valuable and even a few percent difference in the battery size can be enough to impact what other components they put in.

readhn 7y ago

This is interesting times we live in. True Energy independence could turn world politics upside down. The only solution for big oil to survive is to take over big battery business. Interesting what they will come up with!

aphextron 7y ago
>True Energy independence could turn world politics upside down. We have true energy independence in the US. And it has turned world politics upside down. Fracking and LNG has made the US a net energy exporter over the last 10 years.
- readhn 7y ago
  US is not whole world. It will be interesting to see when smaller nations (outside of G8) become truly energy independent. THAT will turn everything upside down once more.

gilead2297 7y ago

If there is anyone on here who works in the battery production, EV, or utility industries, can you comment on exactly what is driving the dramatic cost/kWh declines? Every article I've read seems to imply that the cost declines are just being driven by economies of scale (massive fixed costs of plant construction being averaged out over large production runs) and learning economies (https://rameznaam.com/2014/09/30/the-learning-curve-for-energy-storage/ https://rameznaam.com/2014/09/30/the-learning-curve-for-ener...). Apart from these two forces, are there any innovations in manufacturing processes or product components+architecture that are partly responsible for the decline? Edit: grammar.

ZeroGravitas 7y ago
There was a paper that analysed the source of PV cost declines. Would be interesting to see the same for batteries: Evaluating the causes of cost reduction in photovoltaic modules https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2891516 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2891516
rb808 7y ago
the OP references the bloomberg article which does say economies of scale, but also "thanks to improvements in manufacturing equipment and increased energy density at the cathode and cell level" https://about.bnef.com/blog/battery-pack-prices-fall-as-market-ramps-up-with-market-average-at-156-kwh-in-2019/ https://about.bnef.com/blog/battery-pack-prices-fall-as-mark...
chemeng 7y ago
Raw material prices have declined pretty dramatically in the last 18-24 months (cobalt, lithium,etc).
gibolt 7y ago
It certainly helps when there is a small number of suppliers, one giant manufacturing center, and one nearby consumer. Removing all of the supply chain middlemen in search of buyers, repeatedly producing the same manufacturing machinery, and reducing shipping costs are each chipping away part of the cost.
7y ago

subject117 7y ago

Besides more electric cars, what else could we expect from “electrification”?

WorldMaker 7y ago
Potentially more decentralized or at least time-smoothed electric grids. More batteries can mean greater independence between production means and consumption time. (The obvious case is better time shifting of things like wind or solar power.)
- layoric 7y ago
  "time-smoothed electric grids". Exactly, this is actually where Lithium batteries make the most sense, especially with solar. It isn't to provide 100% backup output at a grid/utility scale but to make output more consistent when it comes to voltage variance and output. Time shifting power output even by minutes via storage combined with solar forecasting (disclaimer: I work for a solar forecasting company), from what I can tell, can remove a large chunk of uncertainty. The better the forecasting, the smaller the battery can be whilst maintaining low levels of uncertainty. Grid scale "backup" via Lithium batteries IMO, doesn't make any sense. Generating hydrogen from excess power for grid scale generation actually does make sense. As power generation gets cheaper still and the "now" value of it also becomes less, I think it will make financial sense to locally "bank" energy in the form of hydrogen for versatile use during peak times where grids are overloaded with renewable energy (and wholesale price is 0 or negative which is common quite often in some networks).
sremani 7y ago
The second and third order effects are a bit hard to predict. Electric fork lifts ?! Cheaper Plastics .. Oil moving from transportation to Chemical sector .. collapse of petro-states .. its going to be interesting.
thinkcontext 7y ago
Natural gas appliances replaced by electric ones, usually in some form of a heat pump.

JimmyRuska 7y ago

Laptop batteries can still be premium item. Especially Dell. If you don't buy a business class laptop, it's very likely you cannot order the battery online. You have to call dell support. Dell support is an India call center that will ask for $70 for a shipping label so you can send the machine in to get diagnosed, even if the bios is saying battery health is poor and you don't need a diagnosis. They refuse to just sell you a new battery from the phone or online. They refuse to give you a cost estimate because they want you to have sunk cost before they give an expensive quote. You send in the machine and it's $60 for battery and $80 for servicing. Aliexpress has the batteries for $20 but there's horror stories about exploding batteries. You can easily pay $200/yr if you want to keep your machines at 50% charge or better. Be sure to see how easy it is to switch a battery before buying a new laptop.

novok 7y ago
How about third party repair people like louis rossman? They will probably do it for the proper price and not give you bullshit.

Animats 7y ago

As a rule of thumb, a 10x increase in production of something halves the price. Purely through economies of scale. Much of what's been seen in lithium-ion batteries is just that. Has Tesla got their act together with their US "Gigafactory" in Nevada yet? They had a lot of problems, most of them in plant management related to starting up a big plant in an isolated area.[1] Plus feuding with Panasonic.[2] Eventually somebody will get this right, and there will be automated plants with very few employees. This is the ideal situation for automation - making huge numbers of identical products. It just takes a long time to get the automation working. A big problem in the US is that few people go into manufacturing engineering. It's a big thing in China, but not in the US. Average pay for manufacturing engineers is about $78K, according to Glassdoor. Senior level, maybe $82K. This is for a job which today requires understanding real-time computer control, electronics, mechanical engineering, and organizational behavior. [1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2019/12/04/tesla-elon-musk-reno-gigafactory-theft-nevada-investigation-report/2610328001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2019/12/04/tesla-e... [2] https://electrek.co/2019/10/09/tesla-panasonic-relationship-hits-hard-times-tesla-make-own-batteries/ https://electrek.co/2019/10/09/tesla-panasonic-relationship-...

rwmurrayVT 7y ago
There are a lot of engineers that work in manufacturing. Typically they'd be referred under controls and automation or maybe industrial engineering.
- dver 7y ago
  Controls Eng for plant level PLC/HMI, Automation Eng for interconnect with the higher layers (SCADA/MES/ERP/Cloud) is the general wording I see. But, yeah lots of mix and match with those words. In the middle of architecting the systems for a new pack line myself.
- bigger_cheese 7y ago
  Here in Australia "Process Engineer" is used a lot for this type of role.
7y ago

dang 7y ago

Url changed from https://www.utilitydive.com/news/battery-prices-fall-nearly-50-in-3-years-spurring-more-electrification-b/568363/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/battery-prices-fall-nearly-..., which points to this.

anon1m0us 7y ago

This has not been my experience as a consumer trying to buy 18650 batteries for my 3.3V ESP-8266 projects. Is there a good place to buy these? Searching Amazon for them shows me tons of AA and AAA batteries but no actual 18650's. In the past couple years, the price has gone up for me and the availability down. Are there better options? I've read about 26650's but I have never tried them. Do they last longer? Are they safer? Can I charge them in my NiteCore charger that works great for 18650's? How can a consumer/tinkerer wanting to scale up production take advantage of these options? The prices may have gone down at Tesla scale, but not at consumer scale.

ripexz 7y ago
Wild guess here but maybe those specific types of batteries went up due to popularity of vaping as they're standard in most mods.
- cududa 7y ago
  I mean, people at first scoffed at the idea of GPU prices rising in 2013 and 2017/18 due to crypto mining (both times!)
skyyler 7y ago
What are you typing into amazon to only find AA? If I type "18650" into amazon I get multiple options for manufacturer, chemistry, and capacity. As well, there are a handful of websites that specialize in selling battery cells, do a web search for "18650 for sale" 26650 cells have higher capacity and max current numbers than 18650s on average but your 18650 charger likely won't have prongs long enough to reach the pads. If they were long enough, it would charge just fine.
esterly 7y ago
Jehu Garcia is a good reference for batter deals ( note discount code "JEHU" )https://kit.co/jehu/black-friday-deals-2019 https://kit.co/jehu/black-friday-deals-2019 found via his channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD7tYQd4XE4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD7tYQd4XE4
7y ago

uoaei 7y ago

The situation in Bolivia probably had a significant effect. There's lots of lithium mines there. The new (read: coup) government knows this I'm sure and is looking to get rich off of it at the expense of the indigenous population.

sek 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_lithium_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_lithium_p... Right now Bolivia only has huge reserves. You also have to be able to extract it efficiently. Look at Venezuela, their reserves are huge but their oil is much more difficult to extract. Also the lithium market is complex, there are many different grades. The impact of raw lithium price on battery prices are just ~30%. So the current political situation has probably no effect at all.
- uoaei 7y ago
  Ah, I was mistaken. I thought they were extracting it.
jiofih 7y ago
Bolívia produces ~0.2% of lithium today. It’s not even in the top 10 for reserves (US, Mexico, Australia). There is no way it can have an impact on global prices unless they ramp up production by > 100x.

jacquesm 7y ago

Consider that I paid $US 7500 for a 48KWh lead-acid battery pack not that long ago, this is a very impressive development.

gok 7y ago

In 2012 it was expected we'd be at $160/kWh by 2025[1]. Instead we're below that by 2019. I wouldn't be surprised if that $100/kWh by 2023 prediction from the source isn't too conservative. [1] https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/our-insights/battery-technology-charges-ahead https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/o...

woodandsteel 7y ago
And once that happens, it is going to turn the auto industry upside down. Some ice companies like VW realize this and are rushing like crazy to be ready when it happens. The companies that aren't doing this today are likely going to go bankrupt.
- dangrossman 7y ago
  I don't think so. Things just don't move that fast in the auto industry. Each car generation lasts 4-8 years. The average age of cars on the road right now is 12 years old. It's taken 10 years to get to 2% EV market share in new vehicle sales even with enormous subsidies. At $100/kWh, a car with 300 miles of range will still have a $7500+ battery, which is too much for sub-$20K cars to still be sub-$20K cars: unless every single auto maker abandons the low-end of the market, someone's going to still be making gas cars for those buyers. There won't be an electric car charger on every street and every parking spot at every apartment building for decades at best, which means people without their own garage to charge in will not be clamoring to switch to much less convenient (for them) electric cars. People will still be buying and driving gas cars and non-plugin hybrids for a very long time, no matter how fast battery prices fall.
  - gok 7y ago
    The sub-$20k new car segment is tiny and shrinking.
  - woodandsteel 7y ago
    I strongly disagree. One problem with your sub-20k market argument is that battery prices are going to keep falling, so in a few more years ev sticker prices are going to be equivalent. Another is that most sub-$20k manufacturers make a large part of their income from more expensive cars, and so for that reason will be in grave danger of bankruptcy. As for chargers, the number is expanding rapidly, for a variety of reasons. That means every year that goes buy there are more people who are in a position to buy an ev. Yes, ice's will keep selling, but the numbers will be going down which means that the economies of scale that present manufacturers depend for profits will no longer be there. They will also be stuck with fixed expenses. That means to make a profit they will have to raise prices, which will just drive sales down faster. Also resale prices will plummet, which will give drivers more of a motivation to buy an ev. Also governments concerned with climate change, which is basically every large developed country besides Russia and the present US federal administration, will be pushing ev's and punishing ice's (like is already going on in China). As for your point the auto industry moves slowly, that is why many companies will go bankrupt.

frankus 7y ago

If this scales down to under a kilowatt-hour it means even a large ebike/scooter/etc. pack could move to double-digit US dollars in the next few years.

StudentStuff 7y ago
Most eBike batteries are half to 3/4ths a kilowatt hour, though if prices were lower you'd almost certainly see 1kwh & 2kwh batteries becoming standard. The market is already headed this way, EM3ev keeps putting out larger and larger packs at the same price points year after year.

1-6 7y ago

Better personal transportation devices, warm coats, extra-long battery life on all electronics. I sense a nomadic lifestyle for everyone.

readhn 7y ago
excellent point! and falling real estate prices - people will distribute out of the cities in search of lower land prices and "cleaner" life style.

tehjoker 7y ago

This is great news. Still, we must end support for the coup in Bolivia that is in part driven by international hunger for lithium.

bromuro 7y ago
Yeah few here seems consider the social and environmental costs of batteries. Disappointing.
tim333 7y ago
Whatever major commodity you look at there are going to be some bad guys involved in its production somewhere.
9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
That is stupid conspiracy theory, lithium is cheap. Cobalt is what makes the price, so keep an eye on Congo. But done if the social problems thanks to Cobalt are already welly known there.

jupp0r 7y ago

No mention of Lithium and Cobalt rare earth mining. Are these resources abundant enough to support this ramp up without counter balancing economics of scale savings?

m0zg 7y ago

Semi-relevant question: there are many battery-based "generators" up to 500Wh on Amazon. Are there any in the 1.5-2KWh range? We often get outages during winter and it'd be good to have something that could drive a furnace for a day or so.