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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.
Lawnmower-to-laptop battery adapter. Wheel Cart not included.
I really like the idea of a battery powered lawnmower, as opposed to the electric lawnmower I had as a kid back in the 70s. My parents were foolish enough to think I could use it without running over the cord... boy did I prove them wrong.
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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.
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
Mod Parent -1: Blasphemy
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
"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? ]=-
Avoids the flex problem, is always charged up, is a lot cheaper to buy and free to run, and as a bonus I get exercise when I cut the lawn! (OK, OK, my *girlfriend* gets exercise when *she* cuts the lawn because I can't be bothered, but the principle's the same!)
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.
The guy from Sony answered it: size, weight, and output differences. Would someone actually critique that instead of talking about markets, price settings, and conspiracy theories?