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Why Is a Laptop's Battery Dearer Than a Lawnmower's?
Barence writes "PC Pro's contributing editor Paul Ockendon has bought a new lawnmower powered by lithium-ion batteries — part of a recent flood of such lithium-ion-powered garden and workshop tools which are taking over from NiCd and NiMH thanks to lighter weight, longer life and lack of the pernicious 'memory effect.' This is pretty much the same battery technology used in laptops, mobile phones and MP3 players, so volume manufacture is already established. Yet laptop manufacturers charge more per Watt-hour than lawnmower makers. This blog investigates whether such a seemingly ludicrous situation can be justified."
Greed.
The reason why laptop batteries are more expensive per unit energy than a lawnmower battery is because you're only willing to tolerate a certain physical size for a laptop battery. On a lawnmower, by comparison, an arbitrarily large battery is generally acceptable provided it is not too extraordinarily heavy.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
It very well might be that heat dissipation requirements deem that laptop batteries be more efficient (read: latest-generation designs, which invariably will cost more per kWh), where lawnmower batteries can get away with models that throw off more waste heat.
When you pack a battery into 1/3 the space you would ideally want it in it has a tendency to explode. The price discrepancy is trying to minimize the likelihood of it literally burning you. A mower has a lot more space for heat dissipation. It's also less likely to cause third-degree burns on the off chance it does overheat, since you don't use it on your lap.
Or someone has a vocabulary big enough to use the word "ludicrous" without having learned it from a Mel Brooks movie.
Some of it is chemistry, and some of it is brand name inflation. Lithium batteries have a range of formulations. The lowest-cost formulations are suitable for low-amperage discharge, while better formulations can be discharged at a much higher current and still maintain a cool temperature and good recharge longevity. Heat is the real enemy here, so cramped cooling-starved long-running applications like laptops also demand better batteries than a weed-whacker that runs occasionally and has a chance of good airflow. In the radio-controlled hobby, there is a huge range of prices for essentially commodity batteries. These are usually Lithium-Polymer, a step above the usual laptop Li-Ion, but the same economics are in play. There are some "well known names" that are sold in all of the domestic R/C retailers. There are some generics sold in Hong Kong that sell for 1/3 to 1/5 the price, and some are even higher quality in longevity testing. Lithium is lithium, so unless there's an amazing return/warranty policy, it's usually not worth the brand name price.
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Because any manufacturer is going to charge the most that you are willing to pay. In lawnmowers, there are cheaper alternatives. With laptops, there are not. Pure market based pricing.
While I'm certain that's part of the issue, I think you're missing a more obvious difference - the form-factor.
A laptop is supposed to be relatively small and portable. Laptop manufacturers will advertise how thick their laptop is, how many pounds it weighs, and how many hours it'll run on a battery. Thus, laptop batteries - while they may be made with the same technology - are as small and dense as possible.
A lawnmower, on the other hand, has wheels on it. While you'd have a hard time shoving a 1 ton brick around your yard, it probably doesn't make much difference if the thing ways 15 lbs or 25 lbs... It'll still move easily enough. And if you're going to make it self-propelled it'll matter even less. The same thing goes for the size/volume of the thing... It isn't like this thing has to fit into an overhead bin or a backpack. Hell, your cutting deck is already several feet square - the battery probably isn't going to be the biggest thing on it.
So you've got laptops (and cell phones) where you're trying to build a tiny, dense battery... And lawn mowers where you just need enough juice to run the mower for a couple hours and it really doesn't matter how bulky the thing is.
And folks are surprised that there's a price difference why?
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
"The cost of goods is what the market will bear.." It cost that much because people will pay that much. Expectations are such that consumers are willing to pay more for non-essential "gadgets" in relation to "tools". A person will buy a $2000 dollar laptop but wouldn't dream of buying a $2000 push mower (outside of premium or elite marketing).
Perception of a product influences price. A battery for a laptop is "techie, electronic, computer related" while a battery for you kid's eleectric car is a "consumable, toy, non-essential" and a battery for a lawnmower is "utlility, get-it-done, tool" in perception.
Those perception influence product pricing. There is no conventional "miniturization" in Lithium batteries per say that you have to pay a higher costs to shrink the battery, it seems more driven by natural market dynamics.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Yup, I wouldn't be surprised if the lawnmower variants have some chemistry/construction changes such that:
1) The cells are slightly larger/heavier per Wh despite similar chemistry
2) The cells are optimized for a somewhat different charge/discharge regime than a laptop
The above could easily make significant changes to the cost of the batteries.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
You can get cheap lithium-ion batteries for laptops. Third party knock off brands usually sent straight China. They don't work as well and in some cases can even cause damage. If laptop batteries were easy to make the third party market wouldn't be full of bad batteries.
I don't think this is likely, because there isn't a lock-in effect with lawnmowers. Having bought a Brand X lawnmower, when you replace it (quite a few years later, hopefully) you will have no need to replace it with another Brand X. The point of initial low prices on things like consoles is to achieve market dominance: games manufacturers make games for the most popular consoles so players buy the consoles which makes them the most popular. The de-factso standard for lawns - flat grass - is in the public domain.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
You just spent an entire paragraph explaining the short, simple post you replied to.
The question posed in the story is simple. Why do computer manufacturers screw customers on battery prices? Because they do, because they always have, and most importantly, because they can.
More like "Lack of standards"
There is no "Laptop battery pack", each laptop seams to have is own wattage/voltage combo that is unique to that model / brand.
The fact is, there should be a "standard" set of standard "sizes" available, like we have for regular batteries (A, AA, AAA, C, D, 9v, etc).
It isn't "greed" so much as it is the cost of making a large number of short run batteries. When it costs almost as much to get a battery as it does a new laptop, there is something wrong.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Of all the ridiculously priced items out there, why did he pick these batteries? Batteries for laptops need to be smaller, lighter, and more careful about heat dissipation than those in a lawnmower. The 66% premium sounds about right, just like the premium one has to pay for the rest of a laptop compared to a big old desktop PC.
If he wants to rant about prices, how about laptop accessories? I wanted to buy a second wall charger for my laptop, but they were charging $75 for it. What about the price of any cable or charger sold at chain stores? Radio Shack, who used to sell packs of resistors to me for 50 cents, wanted me to pay $25 for a USB cable. It's as if they want me to buy everything online.
And I won't even start on text messages and other cell phone baloney. Ranting about that could be a full time job.
No, you would not be accused of any crime. You would not be fined, thrown in jail, etc.
You just wouldn't get any business from people who drive that type of car. Depending on how many people drive that certain type of car, loss of such business might effect your bottom line and cause your business to fail.
From the first line of your post, you proved you do not know the first thing about business or the law. Your second shows a similar lack of knowledge about both the history of electric power and the laws governing utility operations.
Please learn about the topic before you post such drivel.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.