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Pretty recently, maybe in the last year or so?. It's pretty crazy to see it - CATL have started selling LiFePO4 cells as low as US$63/kWh while lead acid tends

Pretty recently, maybe in the last year or so?. It's pretty crazy to see it - CATL have started selling LiFePO4 cells as low as US$63/kWh while lead acid tends to cost more than US$100 per kWh! Obviously a finished battery + retail margin is going to cost more than those figures but we're coming to the point where it will just be cheaper than lead acid on an amp-hour to amp-hour basis. Of course, on a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) basis, it was already cheaper quite a while ago (for the last 5 years I'd guess). It was a combination of LiFePO4 batteries having such longer cycle lives than any lead-acid chemistry, and the greater depth of discharge meaning you could use a lot more of the energy. So if you build a new lead-acid based system, you'd need almost double the amp-hours of batteries to supply the same amount of energy with a safe depth of discharge, and you'd still have to replace them much sooner. So you'd not only have to factor buying a lot more batteries with lead acid but also replacing all the lead acid batteries at least once while a LiFePO4 system would continue to operate.

emj 1mo ago
Lead acid is cheaper because they are really easy to recycle so in a low tech env they are preferable.
- stephen_g 1mo ago
  I don’t know about that - yes it’s simpler to recycle but the cycle life is at least four times longer (I had accidentally understated in my post, did some more reading and lead acid is worse than I remembered), but apparently advanced LiFePO4 cells are getting potentially more like eight or nine times the cycle count! So if you think about the amount of materials - lead acid are almost double the weight vs. lithium batteries per amp hour to start with, then multiply by two because of the usable capacity difference, times four to eight for the cycle life… So you’re talking having to recycle something like sixteen to thirty-two times the weight of the lithium batteries in lead, before the LiFePO4 batteries would have even reached their end of life! It’s really almost unbelievable how much better and cheaper the lithium batteries have become!

emj 1mo ago

Lead acid is cheaper because they are really easy to recycle so in a low tech env they are preferable.

stephen_g 1mo ago
I don’t know about that - yes it’s simpler to recycle but the cycle life is at least four times longer (I had accidentally understated in my post, did some more reading and lead acid is worse than I remembered), but apparently advanced LiFePO4 cells are getting potentially more like eight or nine times the cycle count! So if you think about the amount of materials - lead acid are almost double the weight vs. lithium batteries per amp hour to start with, then multiply by two because of the usable capacity difference, times four to eight for the cycle life… So you’re talking having to recycle something like sixteen to thirty-two times the weight of the lithium batteries in lead, before the LiFePO4 batteries would have even reached their end of life! It’s really almost unbelievable how much better and cheaper the lithium batteries have become!