4 ms·

No surprise there. Increased demand -> increased economies of scale over time. What I'm really curious about is if a new battery with increased density heavily

by jjcm 3y ago

No surprise there. Increased demand -> increased economies of scale over time. What I'm really curious about is if a new battery with increased density heavily disrupts this. If you double density, then naively you need half the batteries / half the materials, or half the cost.

PheonixPharts 3y ago
> Increased demand -> increased economies With the caveat that demand is decreasing right now. [0] 0. https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/ev-makers-turn-to-discounts-to-combat-waning-demand-3aa77535 https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/ev-makers-turn-to-discoun...
- hiddencost 3y ago
  The cycles aren't quite that tightly coupled, I think. The current battery tech is responding to demand (and demand predictions) from a couple years ago.
- thehappypm 3y ago
  I can’t read that article, but, EV adoption is growing like crazy. They went from 6% of new car sales in Q3 2022 to 8% in Q32023. I suspect demand is softer than expected but I am struggling to see how it is “decreasing”.
  - jandrese 3y ago
    It's a decrease in the rate of growth, which of course means the industry is doomed doomed doomed according to a big oil guy at the Wall Street Journal. In reality there were some pretty big price bumps in the past year that softened demand and now they're having to walk those back via incentives. In other words normal business shit.
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
  That's a positive market move, because EV prices have been stupidly high and out of reach for most people in the market for a car. Manufacturers need to to focus on cost and scale, the thing they are, in theory, good at. Competitive pressures should drive the industry to achieve those things.
- martinpw 3y ago
  Can't read the article but pretty sure demand is not decreasing, what is decreasing is the rate of growth. So still growing, but slower than before, which is a far different story.
- wolfendin 3y ago
  > Dealers say part of the problem is that a wealthier group of early EV adopters have already purchased a vehicle. Now, the industry is confronting a more reticent group of consumers, who are already being squeezed by high interest rates and rising costs. Seems like the cheaper batteries will solve that
Epa095 3y ago
You don't think they might have though about "Increased demand -> increased economies of scale over time" when they made the original prediction?
- jfengel 3y ago
  I guess it depends on who "they" were. An awful lot of the people making predictions didn't want electric vehicles to succeed, and lowballed the degree of economies of scale. About the only one who seriously committed to it was Elon Musk and his engineers. It may have been the last sensible thing he did, but it was a doozy.
Tade0 3y ago
This works as long as the increases in density come from widening the range of voltages in which the battery is stable - that has happened in history with the advent of 4.35V cells (vs the previous figure of 4.2V@100% charge). Current approaches like silicon-enriched or pure lithium metal anodes indeed use less materials, but they're decreasing the size of the less dense of the two electrodes, as the metal cathode is typically much denser and heavier than the graphite anode, so ultimately you're getting more density, but largely because you're decreasing the volume of the whole thing. Lithium is the limiting component, since it carries the charge - there's a theoretical limit how little you can use and we're within an order of magnitude of that.
- gpm 3y ago
  I was curious about the value of the theoretical limit, googled it, and found this paper [1] with this chart [2]. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S240582971931102X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S24058... [2] https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S240582971931102X-fx1_lrg.jpg https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S24058297193110...

by jjcm 3y ago

PheonixPharts 3y ago

> Increased demand -> increased economies With the caveat that demand is decreasing right now. [0] 0. https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/ev-makers-turn-to-discounts-to-combat-waning-demand-3aa77535 https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/ev-makers-turn-to-discoun...

hiddencost 3y ago
The cycles aren't quite that tightly coupled, I think. The current battery tech is responding to demand (and demand predictions) from a couple years ago.
thehappypm 3y ago
I can’t read that article, but, EV adoption is growing like crazy. They went from 6% of new car sales in Q3 2022 to 8% in Q32023. I suspect demand is softer than expected but I am struggling to see how it is “decreasing”.
- jandrese 3y ago
  It's a decrease in the rate of growth, which of course means the industry is doomed doomed doomed according to a big oil guy at the Wall Street Journal. In reality there were some pretty big price bumps in the past year that softened demand and now they're having to walk those back via incentives. In other words normal business shit.
dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
That's a positive market move, because EV prices have been stupidly high and out of reach for most people in the market for a car. Manufacturers need to to focus on cost and scale, the thing they are, in theory, good at. Competitive pressures should drive the industry to achieve those things.
martinpw 3y ago
Can't read the article but pretty sure demand is not decreasing, what is decreasing is the rate of growth. So still growing, but slower than before, which is a far different story.
wolfendin 3y ago
> Dealers say part of the problem is that a wealthier group of early EV adopters have already purchased a vehicle. Now, the industry is confronting a more reticent group of consumers, who are already being squeezed by high interest rates and rising costs. Seems like the cheaper batteries will solve that

Epa095 3y ago

You don't think they might have though about "Increased demand -> increased economies of scale over time" when they made the original prediction?

jfengel 3y ago
I guess it depends on who "they" were. An awful lot of the people making predictions didn't want electric vehicles to succeed, and lowballed the degree of economies of scale. About the only one who seriously committed to it was Elon Musk and his engineers. It may have been the last sensible thing he did, but it was a doozy.

Tade0 3y ago

This works as long as the increases in density come from widening the range of voltages in which the battery is stable - that has happened in history with the advent of 4.35V cells (vs the previous figure of 4.2V@100% charge). Current approaches like silicon-enriched or pure lithium metal anodes indeed use less materials, but they're decreasing the size of the less dense of the two electrodes, as the metal cathode is typically much denser and heavier than the graphite anode, so ultimately you're getting more density, but largely because you're decreasing the volume of the whole thing. Lithium is the limiting component, since it carries the charge - there's a theoretical limit how little you can use and we're within an order of magnitude of that.

gpm 3y ago
I was curious about the value of the theoretical limit, googled it, and found this paper [1] with this chart [2]. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S240582971931102X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S24058... [2] https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S240582971931102X-fx1_lrg.jpg https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S24058297193110...