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Electric Car Battery Prices Fell By 80% In the Last 7 Years, Says Study (electrek.co)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: A new study published this month by McKinsey and Company looks into how automakers can move past producing EVs as compliance cars and "drive electrified vehicle sales and profitability." Unsurprisingly, it describes battery economics as an important barrier to profitability and though the research firm sees a path to automakers making a profit selling electric vehicles as battery costs fall, it doesn't see that happening for "the next two to three product cycles" -- or between 2025 and 2030. That's despite battery costs falling from ~1,000 per kWh in 2010 to ~$227 per kWh in 2016, according to McKinsey. The company wrote in the report: "Despite that drop, battery costs continue to make EVs more costly than comparable ICE-powered variants. Current projections put EV battery pack prices below $190/kWh by the end of the decade, and suggest the potential for pack prices to fall below $100/kWh by 2030." Automakers capable of staying ahead of that cost trend will be able to achieve higher margins and possible profits on electric vehicle sales sooner. Tesla is among the automakers staying ahead of the trend. While McKinsey projects that battery pack prices will be below $190/kWh by the end of the decade, Tesla claims to be below $190/kWh since early 2016. That's how the automaker manages to achieve close to 30% gross margin on its flagship electric sedan, the Model S. Tesla aims to reduce the price of its batteries by another 30% ahead of the Model 3 with the new 2170 cells in production at the Gigafactory in Nevada. It should enable a $35,000 price tag for a vehicle with a range of over 200 miles, but McKinsey sees $100/kWh as the target for "true price parity with ICE vehicles (without incentives)": "Given current system costs and pricing ability within certain segments, companies that offer EVs face the near-term prospect of losing money with each sale. Under a range of scenarios for future battery cost reductions, cars in the C/D segment in the US might not reach true price parity with ICE vehicles (without incentives) until between 2025 and 2030, when battery pack costs fall below $100/kWh, creating financial headwinds for automakers for the next two to three product cycles." UPDATE 2/3/17: We have changed the source to Electrek and quoted McKinsey and Company -- the company that conducted the study.
"produced at 227 kWh per kWh in 2010"
"will be $ 190 per kWh and $ 20 per kWh less than $ 100 per kWh"
wtf?
> we can see that the same batteries can be produced at 227 kWh per kWh in 2010...
And it's in the original article, too. Someone needs a new editor...
God, is it so hard to write:
"In 2010 an electric car battery cost $x per kWh and usually had capacity y kWh, and by 2020 this will be $x' and y'."
It's starting to look as if electric cars and clean energy may actually be manage to kill off the fossil fuel industry in the foreseeable future. Will not be shedding any tears when that happens. This would also explain why Trump is in such a hurry to eradicate the EPA. If the price of clean energy keeps falling, eventually the only way Oil and Coal will be able to compete is if they do not have to respect any environmental legislation and the Trump admin fixes it so that they can pollute at will. Once the price of clean energy and electric vehicles falls below even the prices they can offer under those circumstances Oil and Coal will be in trouble. But then again who knows, maybe we will actually see numbers rivalling the women's march hitting the streets to protest the murder of the EPA in which case this may happen even sooner.
....why are electric cars still ridiculously expensive? For most of the models on the market I can get two or even three gas powered cars. Sure, there probably is a difference in the cost of operation, but the biggest hurdle is the initial cost....which is why I drive a 15 year old car, although it only has 61000 miles on it. I rarely drive more than about 15 miles a day, I'd be the perfect candidate for an EV, but an EV costs as much as a house in this region.
Wtf Trump has to do with this?
Let me count the ways... How about we cover the most basic reasons he is relevant? He's president of one of the largest energy producing and energy consuming countries in the world. He has stated point blank that he thinks climate change is a hoax and that he wants to roll back regulations on fossil fuel emissions. He has significant personal investments in the oil and gas companies. Fossil fuel companies have a direct interest in preventing electric vehicles (and renewable energy) from becoming a thing because it hurts them economically.
So we have a president with a clear and obvious conflict of interest due to investments in oil and gas companies who has every reason (philosophic and economic) to oppose further development of electric vehicles and related technologies if they hurt the fossil fuel industry.
It's starting to look as if electric cars and clean energy may actually be manage to kill off the fossil fuel industry in the foreseeable future
I suppose that depends on what your definition of "foreseeable" is. Quite frankly I don't see it happening during my lifetime and according to actuarial tables I probably have around another 30-40 years left.
Here is what I I do see as possibilities/likelihoods within the next 40 years. Politics could obviously interfere with any/all of this 1) Hybrid and electric cars take major amounts of market share. They won't eliminate internal combustion engines but they will substantially mitigate their impact. If charge times can be made less than 10-15 minutes, electric vehicles will dominate market share in passenger vehicles. Luxury cars will mostly be hybrids within 10-15 years and the technology will trickle down from there.
I think this evolution will be much faster in Europe. Hybrid cars are fairly common here and if, as you mention, it were possible to charge a pluggable hybrid up in 10 minutes and get 100 km out of it at a speed of around 100 km/h I'd definitely buy one. In fact the last time I was in the market for a car the only reason I did not buy a hybrid was that no pluggable ones were available. I'd do about 80-90% of my driving, commuting to work and running errands in electric mode on a car like that. If electric cars could be had with a charge time of 10 minutes and a subsequent range of ~3-400 km and if the charge station infrastructure was in place I'd buy one in a heartbeat and never look back.
2) Solar roofs will become a thing on high end houses and many commercial buildings. (added benefit of greater system reliability)
Having spent significant time driving through Germany and Denmark for over a decade I can tell you this is already a very common sight there, even on quite normal residential buildings. I actually had trouble finding a farm in Jutland and Schleswig-Holstein where the farmer hand't either set up a battery of wind turbines, covered every available roof with solar cells or done both. Stereotypical farmers are supposed to be a conservative lot but seeing them embrace new technologies with such enthusiasm leads me to doubt that.
3) Wind farms and industrial scale solar become an increasingly important part of our energy portfolio. Probably not the majority but 30%+ is realistic. 50%+ is possible.
The Germans are already at ~28% and are aiming for 60% by 2050 by which time they will have decreased their carbon footprint due to energy generation by 80–95%. At the very least they look set to get very close to that goal.
4) Batteries and power storage systems will improve significantly and solar/wind as well as transport will benefit in proportion.
Agree.
5) Coal will remain expensive as long as natural gas is plentiful from fracking but coal will remain a large % of the US and Chinese energy portfolios due to the abundant amounts available in those two countries.
And what happens if the per KWh price of solar/wind drops below that of coal? Apparently solar is now cheaper than coal: https://hardware.slashdot.org/... and so is wind: https://hardware.slashdot.org/...
6) Oil and gas based fuels will continue to play a dominant role in our energy portfolios for at least another 30-40 years. Exact percent unclear but big number without question.
Things that could accelerate matters? Widespread adoption of carbon taxes. Removal of subsidies from fossil fuel industry. Appropriate levels of taxation on diesel/gasoline fuels commensura
That was my reaction, too... insanely expensive 9V primary cells on the shelf, and even bulk ordered, rechargeables are looking more economical for 9V at this point because the price of rechargeables is so much lower now. The question is A) whether your smoke detectors are built to deal with the fast cutoff at end of charge for non-alkaline cells B) whether they are maintained by you alone so your rechargeables don't get swiped and C) whether there is some stupid rule that rechargeables aren't allowed even if the smoke detectors are compatible.so you don't get flagged during some sort of inspection and D) whether replacing the smoke detector with a model that does 3x AA is also an option.
Normally for something like low draw a smoke detector rechargeables would not make financial sense, but at these prices...
Someone had to do it.
o The vehicle is inherently power source agnostic.
o The vehicle changes power source based on the area it is in when it charges.
o An EV uses energy more efficiently than an ICEV.
o It's easier and more efficient to reduce pollution at one power plant than to upgrade/alter/replace large numbers of polluting vehicles. Coal plant pollution is highly accessible for pollution control. There are post-combustion products and ash. Both can be approached; while the EV produces zero additional distributed pollution itself.
o More non-coal power is coming online in many areas. You can already supplement whatever source is feeding power to your home with wind and solar. But this is unlikely to change anything about the coal plant, because...
o How you charge your car is extremely unlikely to change the coal plant's output. You're just using more of what is being produced if you charge from its output. The typical coal plant runs at a very steady rate; it takes a lot of time to fire up a coal fueled generator, so coal plants can't respond to power grid variations quickly. So they run at a capacity able to deliver what might be needed all the time. They don't generally sit there with idle generators, either. And if they can, that means the area is getting power from elsewhere to take up the slack, and that may very well be from sources other than coal.
o If you have an ICEV, your pollution footprint is fixed by your unbreakable link to the petroleum industry for the service life of the vehicle and/or the time you own it, whichever is shorter. But if you have an EV, the instant that coal plant is supplemented or replaced by a less polluting source (which is almost anything, coal plants are not great), your pollution footprint becomes smaller.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
From 2010 to 2016, battery pack prices fell roughly 80% from ~$1,000/kWh to ~$227/kWh
From 2013 to 2017, ranges of EVs have increased. The Nissan Leaf went from 75mi to 107mi, and the Tesla Model S went from 208mi to 249mi. This is mostly due to bigger battery packs (24kWh --> 30kWh and 60kWh --> 75kWh respectively).
In 2016, the battery pack cost is still ~$227/kWh, meaning that a 60kWh Tesla battery pack is ~$13600. The target cost for parity with ICE vehicles is $100/kWh, which is likely to happen sometime between 2025 and 2030.
(((dB)))