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I think this is less about ground breaking research and more about simply ramping up volume production to the point where the market isn't supply constrained an

I think this is less about ground breaking research and more about simply ramping up volume production to the point where the market isn't supply constrained anymore. With the EV industry basically growing as fast as batteries can be produced, that might take a while. But as that happens, cost will continue to improve for manufacturers and that should start reflecting out in unit prices. The important thing to realize is that production cost and product price are two things. In a supply constrained industry full of EV manufacturers desperate to buy any batteries at all, the profit margins are going to be insane for battery manufacturers for quite some time to come. So, we might not see lower prices until production volumes start meeting demand. That demand is for existing batteries at their existing prices. A better battery at a higher price would likely do equally well. However, new and improved batteries should drive the prices of the older ones down. So, we might end up with some commodity good enough batteries produced in very high volumes that will actually become affordable at some point.

jacquesm 5y ago
Let's hope that there will be a major effort to make batteries not only cheaper but cheaper to recycle. Right now we are treating ground up batteries as high grade ore rather than to be able to retrieve their component parts in relatively pure state from the battery itself. There are probably very good reasons for this but it strikes me that we may be going from one environmental problem into another. A few hundred kilos of chemical waste per vehicle is not a great prospect to look forward to.
- adrianN 5y ago
  How much waste is left after the "high grade ore" is processed? I thought we were pretty good at extracting metals from stuff.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Anywhere from 5 to 75% depending on who you believe. https://cen.acs.org/materials/energy-storage/time-serious-recycling-lithium/97/i28 https://cen.acs.org/materials/energy-storage/time-serious-re... Note that this is in flux, more recent articles may give different (hopefully higher) numbers.
- jillesvangurp 5y ago
  There is plenty of investment going into recycling. Basically recycling lithium from spent batteries is vastly easier compared to refining it from naturally occurring deposit that only have tiny trace amounts of it when measured in parts per million. That's why lithium is so expensive. There's no shortage of it but refining it from naturally occurring deposits is a very energy intensive process due to the low concentrations of it even in some of the richer deposits. Recovering it from a batteries that actually contain many kilos of it is going to be not a hard cost equation for a wannabe recycler. In the unlikely case that somebody were to actually dump EV batteries in a landfill that would just create a nice business opportunity for other companies. Much better to sell batteries directly to such companies. But if you are genuinely worried about environmental impact, you should of course be very angry about anything ICE vehicle related where we convert fossil fuels into planet destroying quantities of CO2 without regard to how the oil is mined, how badly it destroys the environment or how many babies the exhaust fumes kill. Exaggerating a little here but just making the point here that there is a bit of double standards here. When it comes to ICE vehicles, nobody gives a shit where their oil comes, how many children were involved mining the Cobalt involved in removing the sulfur from their diesel/petrol (yes, that's a thing). But as soon as we talk EVs people suddenly get hyper critical about how resources are mined and used and where stuff comes from. It's more than a little hypocritical. Yes there are some challenges (and business opportunities) but it pales in comparison to the absolute dumpster fire that is the ICE vehicle industry and its apologists.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    It is perfectly possible to see another ecological catastrophe coming and to try to avoid a repeat of past mistakes. If you want to really help the planet: don't use an ICE don't use a BEV, ride a bike.
  - euroderf 5y ago
    About the double standard: I'm guessing the cobalt used for replacing the ICE will be an order of magnitude or two more than what has been + will be used for portable electronic devices. Or am I full of balonie ?
- tuatoru 5y ago
  If LFP does get to 10_000 cycles usable, that's 50 years at 200 cycles per year. Cars are going to get much more durable, or it's going to have to be easy to move a pack to a new chassis three or four times. Car manufacturers would probably prefer the latter. Either that, or we get my imagined rustpunk future, with multi-acre demolition yards full of rusting car bodies piled five high, all wired up and acting as grid storage. The recycling problem is there, definitely; but it's not overwhelming. And it's much less of a problem than methane emissions and toxic chemical emissions from fracking for oil.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    This would be ideal. But car manufacturers would hate to no longer sell fashion and status items but just transportation.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
“I think this is less about ground breaking research and more about simply ramping up volume production to the point where the market isn't supply constrained anymore.“ These happen hand in hand. It’s analogous to semiconductor improvements that take 1-10 thousand minor improvements (R&D) over the global supply chain during a given year to result in real gains.

jacquesm 5y ago

Let's hope that there will be a major effort to make batteries not only cheaper but cheaper to recycle. Right now we are treating ground up batteries as high grade ore rather than to be able to retrieve their component parts in relatively pure state from the battery itself. There are probably very good reasons for this but it strikes me that we may be going from one environmental problem into another. A few hundred kilos of chemical waste per vehicle is not a great prospect to look forward to.

adrianN 5y ago
How much waste is left after the "high grade ore" is processed? I thought we were pretty good at extracting metals from stuff.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Anywhere from 5 to 75% depending on who you believe. https://cen.acs.org/materials/energy-storage/time-serious-recycling-lithium/97/i28 https://cen.acs.org/materials/energy-storage/time-serious-re... Note that this is in flux, more recent articles may give different (hopefully higher) numbers.
jillesvangurp 5y ago
There is plenty of investment going into recycling. Basically recycling lithium from spent batteries is vastly easier compared to refining it from naturally occurring deposit that only have tiny trace amounts of it when measured in parts per million. That's why lithium is so expensive. There's no shortage of it but refining it from naturally occurring deposits is a very energy intensive process due to the low concentrations of it even in some of the richer deposits. Recovering it from a batteries that actually contain many kilos of it is going to be not a hard cost equation for a wannabe recycler. In the unlikely case that somebody were to actually dump EV batteries in a landfill that would just create a nice business opportunity for other companies. Much better to sell batteries directly to such companies. But if you are genuinely worried about environmental impact, you should of course be very angry about anything ICE vehicle related where we convert fossil fuels into planet destroying quantities of CO2 without regard to how the oil is mined, how badly it destroys the environment or how many babies the exhaust fumes kill. Exaggerating a little here but just making the point here that there is a bit of double standards here. When it comes to ICE vehicles, nobody gives a shit where their oil comes, how many children were involved mining the Cobalt involved in removing the sulfur from their diesel/petrol (yes, that's a thing). But as soon as we talk EVs people suddenly get hyper critical about how resources are mined and used and where stuff comes from. It's more than a little hypocritical. Yes there are some challenges (and business opportunities) but it pales in comparison to the absolute dumpster fire that is the ICE vehicle industry and its apologists.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  It is perfectly possible to see another ecological catastrophe coming and to try to avoid a repeat of past mistakes. If you want to really help the planet: don't use an ICE don't use a BEV, ride a bike.
- euroderf 5y ago
  About the double standard: I'm guessing the cobalt used for replacing the ICE will be an order of magnitude or two more than what has been + will be used for portable electronic devices. Or am I full of balonie ?
tuatoru 5y ago
If LFP does get to 10_000 cycles usable, that's 50 years at 200 cycles per year. Cars are going to get much more durable, or it's going to have to be easy to move a pack to a new chassis three or four times. Car manufacturers would probably prefer the latter. Either that, or we get my imagined rustpunk future, with multi-acre demolition yards full of rusting car bodies piled five high, all wired up and acting as grid storage. The recycling problem is there, definitely; but it's not overwhelming. And it's much less of a problem than methane emissions and toxic chemical emissions from fracking for oil.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  This would be ideal. But car manufacturers would hate to no longer sell fashion and status items but just transportation.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

“I think this is less about ground breaking research and more about simply ramping up volume production to the point where the market isn't supply constrained anymore.“ These happen hand in hand. It’s analogous to semiconductor improvements that take 1-10 thousand minor improvements (R&D) over the global supply chain during a given year to result in real gains.