• Friday, November 20, 2009 Latest Update: 4:41PM

greenlight

Michael Kanellos | November 10, 2009 at 3:15 PM 6 Comments

How Much Do Lithium-Ion Batteries Cost to Make?

Battery cost – that single factor will likely determine when and how fast cars move from gasoline to electricity. Driving range and charging infrastructure are two problems that will likely take care of themselves: Consumers will lose range anxiety when they realize they have another car that they can take to Disneyland and lose interest in public charging stations when they realize they don't need many of them.

But battery costs directly impact car costs and hence the attractiveness of electric vehicles to consumers.

The short answer? It costs about $250 a kilowatt hour to produce ordinary lithium-ion cells for laptops, said Mark Duvall, an analyst at EPRI at a greentech breakfast sponsored by the SD Forum this morning. Making lithium-ion packs for cars cost more: Automakers have strict safety and performance standards. The general consensus is that lithium-ion packs for cars cost around $900 per kilowatt hour. General Motors, though, has strongly hinted that it is closer to $500 a kilowatt hour than the $1,000 mark, Duvall said. The Volt has a 16 kilowatt hour battery, so the battery costs about $8,000. The Volt battery, he added, also is overbuilt: It is bigger than GM needs for the car to do 40 miles on a charge. A supersized battery, however, gives the battery more charge cycles.

Ultimately, the price of batteries will approach the cost of manufacturing, he said, and many expect manufacturing prices for batteries to decline as volumes pick up. Ergo, batteries could get somewhat cheap in the next few years, if Duvall is right. Then again, improving battery technology has historically been tricky. There is no Moore's Law for batteries that allows performance to double every two years. It takes about ten years for performance to double.

Other notes at the event:

• Both Duvall and Marianne Wu of Mohr Davidow Ventures said that power prices will inevitably rise due to scarcity of resources, the influx of renewables and other technical and macroeconomic issues.

• "Consumers don't understand that the cost of energy is just going up," Wu said, adding that consumer expectations are "out of whack" with current trends.

• Creating green jobs also may not be easy. Solar installation jobs will be based in the U.S. but it's an open question how to bring solar manufacturing to come to the U.S.

‹ Older | ActaCell Gets $1M From Texas Rumor: Secretive Tri Alpha Energy to Show Off Fusion Technology Next Year | Newer ›

Comments [6]

  • hsr0601 11/11/09 2:26 AM

    To be sure, Recycling battery for solar panels clears way for market penetration.

     Reply
  • mike 11/11/09 4:16 AM

    Your informed comments about lithium ion pricing are broadly right.  But as your article identified, batteries are subject to fluctuations in material costs.  Unless we really have access to a large global supply of lithium, which we do not as a planet, then we will drive ourselves into another corner of dwinling supplies and rising prices for raw materials.  The result, is we end up with large populations of vehicles powered by lithium batteries and we will be that the we have another crisis as result of increased prices.  Anyone who buys an EV will need to think that at some point in the vehicles life there will be the need for a new battery system.

    Lithium batteries are very difficult to manage. They contain a lot of energy are volatile and dangerous if they are not managed correctly.  The cells which battery manufacturers produce are only the start of the process. In addition to that the cells need to be packaged effectivly for each application and then a intelligent monitoring system needs to be placed around the cells to relay information to the operator or driver and the system itself.  This is why the price you quote of $900 per Kwh is again broadly correct.  Finally the batteries have to be charged properly. This requires a public and private infrastructure.  All of these items come at a cost.
    A couple of years ago we saw a huge euphoric wave go up from the car manufacturers in response to rising oil prices, and telling us that they would produce a whole new generation of cars.  In the US the manufacturers and battery industry convinced a new team of government that they could deliver something that was nothing short of a miricle and what resulted was a payout of billions of dollars.  But today we are seeing more and more car company pulling back from their bold statements about being the first or the best or the cheapest as they learn the issues of integrating a whole new discipline of engineering into their time tested IC driven vehicles.

    We need a pragmatic approach to the problem.  Toyota has really got it right.  No hype but just a gradual evolution of their vehicles as they learn more and integrate proven components - such as Nickel Hydride batteries - into their vehicles.
    Finally journalists have to stop following all this hype and talking it all up.  They need to understand more about what they are writing about not just - as many seem to do -regurgitate and diseminate the latest press releases that tumbles onto their computer screen.

     Reply
      • mds 11/12/09 11:09 AM

        I disagree.

        Summary:
        1.  Lithium is a plentiful resource.
        2.  Some Li Ion batteries can already outlive the vehicle, for example Toshiba SCiB battery now has 10,000 deep cycles.
        3.  No high-density energy storage can be considered completely safe.  Having said that, Li FePO4, Li TiO2, Li Mn2O4 battery chemistries are safer than gasoline, even if gasoline is safer than 1970 LiCo battery chemistry.  Gas fumes are dangerous. 
        4.  The controls required by lithium batteries are solid state and will drop in price so their total cost will rapidly drop down close to $250 per kWh for the chemical part of the battery and down from there as manufacturing of these batteries matures and increases in scale.
        5.  The infrastructure for charging ReEVs and BEVs is already available in your home.  It will take so little to develop the additional infrastructure for fast charging BEVs that it’s already started to happen.  The ability to run off of electricity from any source is a huge advantage over oil or natural gas dependency.  There’s a plethora of sources of additional electrical power.
        6.  Battery companies, BEV manufactures, and ReEV manufactures are mostly scaling up, very few are scaling back.
        7.  ReEVs are fundamentally superior to any HEV (Prius) or high-mpg diesel.
        8.  Toyota speaks with forked tongue on NiMH verses Li Ion batteries.
        9.  NiMH batteries are complete dogs compared to newer Li Ion batteries.  The move to Li Ion was already happening during the reign of Bush’s oily empire, i.e. against that headwind. 
        10.  Please do some research and reconsider your view. 

        The idea we may run out of Lithium is disinformation, i.e. negative hype.  Do a google search on “keith evans lithium” and read what he has to say.  Lithium is so plentiful it is produced from salt lake deposits as a bi-product of potassium production.  The more plentiful mineral source of lithium in spudomene is not even being exploited because it’s more expensive.  It’s not much more expensive and lithium is a small percentage of the batteries, so it would not impact the price much.  The internet disinformation on limited lithium supplies originates with William Tahil who has no credentials in this field.  Keith Evans is a veteran expert in the field of lithium supply.  There are also other chemistries in development which will compete with Li, like zinc-air and nickel-zinc for examples.  Please do some critical reading on this.
        http://www.ecoworld.com/blog/2009/03/27/gms-volt-lithium-batteries/ 
        “GM’s Volt & Global Lithium Reserves” - March 2009
        “If you run these numbers, it appears we can build 2.42 billion EVs before we run out of known lithium reserves.”

        You said: “Anyone who buys an EV will need to think that at some point in the vehicles life there will be the need for a new battery system.”
        Again, I disagree, it depends on the Li Ion battery.  I know of 9 Li Ion battery manufactures with Li Ion “safe” chemistries capable of more than 3,000 deep cycles.  This is a full deep discharge every single day for over eight years and the batteries are not dead and there will be better replacements by then.  3 of these 9 manufactures can do better than 6,000 deep cycles.  That’s over 15 years of full deep discharge each day and will outlast most cars today.  My personal favorite is Toshiba:
        http://cleantechnica.com/2009/01/17/schwinn-tailwind-electric-bike-charges-in-under-30-minutes/  - January 2009
        “The 5ah, 24V battery works for 2000 charge cycles at full capacity and maintains 80% capacity after 6000 cycles.”
        http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/04/scib-20090413.html  - April 2009
        “Report: Toshiba Boosts Discharge Density of SCiB Li-ion Battery, Plans Full-Scale Commercialization in the Fall”
        “...because it can be charged as fast as in a minute and a half, instead of more than 10 minutes, it is suited for plug-in hybrids, according to Toshiba. The battery also has a long life, capable of withstanding more than 10,000 recharges.”
        “Toshiba currently produces 150,000 SCiBs a month at its plant in Nagano Prefecture”
        “planning for an initial 2 million units a month upon start-up, and hopes to boost monthly output to 10 million by around 2015.”
        http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/10/scib-20091028.html 
        “Toshiba to Build a Second Li-ion SCiB Production Facility in Japan” - October 2009

        You said: “Lithium batteries are very difficult to manage. They contain a lot of energy are volatile and dangerous if they are not managed correctly.”
        This is dated information.  It will never be completely safe to drive around a small vehicle with that kind of energy storage density, no matter the storage technology.  However, several of the lithium ion chemistries and battery electrolytes being used now are far safer than gasoline.  (None of the 9 Li Ion battery manufactures mentioned above use Li Ion with Cobalt because that’s the 1970s chemistry that is so dangerous.)  You don’t have to worry about having your cell phone in your pocket when charging your EV or ReEV.  It can cause a gas vapor explosion when fueling a car with gasoline.  Leave it in the car.  Then there’s the well known danger of static discharge igniting gasoline at the fuel pump on a cold dry day in the mid-west.  No, you definitely have your risk assessment backwards.

        You said: “In addition to that the cells need to be packaged effectively for each application and then a intelligent monitoring system needs to be placed around the cells to relay information to the operator or driver and the system itself.  This is why the price you quote of $900 per Kwh is again broadly correct.”
        Sure, because it’s costly when you first start manufacturing something like this.  …but you are just talking about electronics monitoring and controls.  The cost is going to come down rapidly as the manufactures figure out how to do this reliably and as production volumes go up.  Try to think of a category of solid state electronics where this has not been the case.  The cost will come down close to the $250 per kWh of the Li Ion chemistry itself and will go down farther from there as Li Ion, or other, chemistries continue to improve.  New nanotechnology and the birth of a multi-billion dollar battery market will drive this.

        You said: “Finally the batteries have to be charged properly. This requires a public and private infrastructure. “
        The controls to charge them properly can and are being built into the battery.  All you need is an electrical outlet and electrical outlets are already available everywhere.  You already have the outlet you need to charge a ReEV at home.  We’ll need bigger ones available at charging stations for BEVs.  Not a big deal.  They are already being built.  As for electricity, there’s a plethora of sources already mention in my other post.  Take your pick.  Let’s take the easy and conservative one, new natural gas from shale.  Ok, we’re good for 50 years.  Thanks.  Personally, I like solar PV.  48% per annum growth in world production of PV since 2002 and 100% growth in PV output last year.  (Cell production improvements allowed it to blow right through the silicon supply shortage of the past few years with barely a hickup.)  How many industries have ever grown this fast?  PV may not be producing a large percentage of kWh right now, but keep an eye on your rear view mirror.  It’s coming up from behind very fast.

        You said:  “But today we are seeing more and more car company pulling back from their bold statements about being the first or the best or the cheapest as they learn the issues of integrating a whole new discipline of engineering into their time tested IC driven vehicles.”
        Toshiba, mentioned, is not pulling back, they’re accelerating their battery production to meet anticipated demand.  Most others are doing the same.  Only pull back I’ve seen is Ford/Chrysler.  Minor delay because they don’t think they can compete in the initial ReEV and BEVmarket. (imo) It’s getting crowded.
        ReEVs are fundamentally superior to IC driven vehicles.  Even ignoring the short all-electric range, which will give most users huge fuel savings, ReEVs will out-perform any HEV or high-mpg deisel.  The complete decoupling of the IC generator from electric drive systems and the far superior load leveling from deeper-cycling, higher-power Li Ion batteries will improve mpg beyond what any HEV or Diesel can offer.  IC engineering 101:  a large part of the inefficiency of the IC in modern automobiles is from operating at variable speeds.  Complete decoupling from this requirement allows use of ICs, turbines, or other types of generators that are more efficient, in part, because they’re optimized for single speed operation.  (You could even use a high efficiency diesel generator.) Electric motors are far more efficient.  In total, a fuel generator coupled to an electric motor is significantly more efficient than a direct fuel motor driven vehicle.  That’s how the Prius got an edge over IC driven vehicles to begin with.  The ReEV carries this one step farther, because the technology to do this is now here.  …AND the real improvement is you can use electricity from many available sources for the first 40 miles.  ReEVs are full freeway speed BEVs with no range anxiety because they can be driven as Series HEVs powered by gasoline indefinitely.
        Current NiMH batteries are complete dogs compared to Li Ion batteries.  They only have a deep cycle life of something like 700 cycles.  Of course Toyota is saying they’re great.  I drive a Prius.  The battery almost never discharges all the way.  I’m carrying around dead battery weight most of the time.  The Prius is a historically awesome design, but the design is now 10 years old and outdated …because of new battery and electric drive technology.  A Li Ion based ReEV can do what the NiMH based Prius does and operate all-electric at freeway speeds.  The Li Ion based ReEV is far superior.
        Toyota dominates the HEV market with the Prius and they want to keep profiting from this for as long as they can.  Besides they gambled on being able to fix the Li Ion Cobalt problem and failed, so they are now behind almost everyone else in Li Ion technology.  Publicly, they are saying Li Ion is not the way to go.  Privately, they are developing a Li Ion based BEV and Li Ion based PHEV themselves.  …just like almost every other auto maker out there (find an exception) …because Li Ion is fundamentally far better than any NiMH battery out there.  Do some research on this yourself and think about it.  Toyota speaks with forked tongue!

        Sorry to put such a long response on this site, but I disagree with almost everything you said and think the information is there to back up my view.  Please do some research and reconsider your own view.  It may be difficult to believe the state of technology is as good as I’m claiming, but I suggest to you and others it is.  No hype, just the facts.
  • mds 11/11/09 5:16 AM

    The article says: “Battery cost – that single factor will likely determine when and how fast cars move from gasoline to electricity.”
    Nope, Range-extended Electric Vehicles (ReEVs) remove problem of range anxiety and reduce high battery cost, while providing 90% of the benefits of true Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs).  Also, remember the production of current ICE based autos has been optimized for 100 years.  The profit margin and production efficiency has already been squeezed for current autos.  This squeezing in the press of market competition has just started for ReEVs and BEVs.  They will be cheaper than current autos.  Why?
    Read this Wall Street Journal link:
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123172034731572313.html  “Technology Levels Playing Field in Race to Market Electric Car” - January 2009
    Here is the important point:
    ““Indeed, BYD’s all-electric e6, has just two motors (45 parts each), one powering the front axle and the other the rear, and two gearboxes (60 parts each) to go with each of the motors. That means the whole system has 210 primary parts, excluding nuts and bolts. In comparison, BYD’s F6, a gasoline-fueled vehicle, has a total of 1,400 powertrain parts: a V6 engine composed of 840 parts and a transmission with 560 parts.”
    210 parts compared to 1,400 parts.  This reduced number of parts means ReEVs and BEVs will be much cheaper to produce than current ICE based autos when similar economies of scale are reached.  (Actually, 10% of the market in 2020 should do the job.)

    The article says: “There is no Moore’s Law for batteries that allows performance to double every two years.”
    That’s very unoriginal and misleading.  Of course there’s no “Moore’s law”.  What is happening to batteries right now is disruptive change due to the use of nanotechnology fabrication techniques.
    It also says: “It takes about ten years for performance to double.”
    That is so lame.  It took ten years to double, but it’s not following any well behaved growth curve and it’s very possible this growth rate will increase.  More development investment dollars are certainly being spent.
    Besides, current Li Ion technology already has sufficient energy density and cycle life to make ReEVs feasible.  You just have to bring the production cost of the rest of the car down.  It’s mostly an infrastructure scale up problem now.  That’s why GM/Volt, Aptera, Bright Automotive, FEV+Raser, Fisker, and others are bringing ReEVs to market now.

    Finally we have the article’s financial experts saying “power prices will inevitably rise due to scarcity of resources”
    In the short term electric power prices may continue to raise some.  Do you think they’ll go higher than oil?  No!  Besides, in the longer term they will come back down.  The cost of wind and solar are falling rapidly.  First Solar and Sempra already claim to be generating electricity using PV in Nevada for 7.5 cents/kWh.  This is half the cost of electrical power in many areas of neighboring California.  Then there’s nuclear, (god forbid)coal, geothermal, VIVACE current power, and let’s not forget 100 years worth of shale gas that’s recently become economical to recover from much of the eastern USA.  A scarcity of power resources?  The Wus are nuts.  There’s a plethora of power resources.  The most abundant and renewable of all, solar, is beginning to reach price parity in California.  Wait till manufacturing of First Solar CdTe and Nanosolar CIGS catches up with demand.  WOW!

    One more thing: The USA is now seen as becoming one of the largest solar markets.  We already have a lot of solar manufacturing, in spite of high labor rates, and more manufacturing is moving here.  We have some of the best solar technology, CdTe and CIGS.  (There is also some good competition out there too.)

    What is the deal here Mr. Kanellos?  Are the renewable energy and EV markets doing too well for you, so you feel the need to become a right wing republican naysayer?  Smile and be happy, we’re witnessing the dawning of a golden age.

    Stop repeating what has been the commonly held perception.  That is changing fast.  They call it disruptive growth for a reason.  Start thinking about what is really going on.

     Reply
  • Steve 11/12/09 11:49 AM

    The $900 number sounds waay off.  Here is a worked engineering example:

    The Tesla Roadster’s 53kWh storage unit uses 6831 standard 18650 Li-Ion cells, the current standard format for laptops.  Tesla’s energy storage unit is a very complex electronic subsystem, with hierarchical power management, 3 fuses per cell, and integrated thermal management.  It all comes in a 950 pound sealed box that is certified as safe by the UN for shipping on passenger aircraft, quite an amazing accomplishment.


    The earliest Tesla battery units were said to cost the company about $30K.  Right now Tesla customers can pay $12,000 for a replacement battery pack, or $226/kWh.  I really doubt Elon Musk is losing any money on his cars; he announced the company was cash flow positive in July.


    Presumably the higher numbers in the article refer to current prices for small quantities of newly designed prismatic (“new and strange shaped”) battery formats, which are not standardized like the 18650’s and are not yet being produced in significant quantities by multiple vendors.  Their cost will drop dramatically with volume, too.  And the prismatic units will likely integrate some of the supporting electronics (unlike 18650’s).  A vehicle’s energy storage subsystem will therefore require many fewer cells than a design based on 18650’s and also require fewer electronic components.  Costs per vehicle should drop dramatically from that silly $900 number

     Reply

Green Light

Greentech Media's Green Light blog covers the full-scope of the greentech world, while expanding the range of our daily news reporting with brief and insightful blog posts from our Greentech Media editors, GTM Research analysts and numerous guest bloggers.

Archive

Links

Categories

Copyright © 2009 Greentech Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

.