Blockbuster!The price of a lithium-ion battery pack has officially crossed the $
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2020/12/19 15:34:42
Reducing battery costs is the biggest challenge for mass adoption of electric cars at prices comparable to those of gas-fired vehicles or even lower.Elon Musk, who has a reputation as a cost killer, knows this well, and tesla's progress from being small to invincible is musk's pursuit of extreme cost.According to Musk on This year's Battery Day, Tesla is committed to first principles to reduce the cost of battery value chain, such as cell design, cell manufacturing, anode materials, cathode materials and cell integration, and will eventually reduce the cost of battery packs by 56% to $60 per kilowatt-hour by 2023.
The current cost of a Tesla battery pack is about $136 per kilowatt-hour, and the consensus in the industry is that the battery pack will cost less than $100 per kilowatt-hour if electric cars are to be sold at the same price as gasoline cars.For now, Tesla is a long way from that.But while Tesla is still drawing the pie for the public, the price of lithium-ion battery packs in the industry has reached the historic $100 / KWH mark.
On Dec. 16, Bloomberg NEF (BNEF) reported that the price of lithium-ion battery packs fell below $100 per kilowatt-hour for the first time this year.The price was created by electric buses from China.BNEF stressed that while this is the lowest reported price, the actual weighted average price of electric buses in China is slightly higher, reaching $105 / KWH.If you separate the battery pack from the cell, the battery pack costs $126 per kilowatt-hour, and the average cost of the cell is $100 per kilowatt-hour.That means PACK accounts for 21% of the total price.
Battery pack prices could drop significantly in 2020, BNEF said, citing increased orders, increased sales of pure electric vehicles and the introduction of new battery pack designs.In addition, the new cathode material and manufacturing cost reduction will further drive down the battery pack price in the short term.Another positive factor is that the price of cathode materials has been falling since its peak in the spring of 2018, reaching a more stable level in 2020.
James Frith, director of energy storage research at BNEF and lead author of the report, said: "A lithium-ion battery pack below $100 per kilowatt hour is a historic milestone.In just a few short years, we will see industry average prices below that or even lower.Moreover, our analysis suggests that even if raw material prices were to return to their 2018 highs, it would only delay the industry's average price to $100 / KWH by two years, and would not derail the industry at all.As leading battery makers move up the value chain and invest in cathode production, the industry is becoming more and more attuned to changes in raw material prices."
The price of lithium-ion battery packs is moving in the direction people expect.A decade ago, lithium-ion battery packs cost $1, 100 a kilowatt-hour. Today, they cost $137 a kilowatt-hour, an 89% drop in that time.BNEF's latest forecast is that by 2023 the average industry price will be close to $100 per kilowatt-hour.
The 2020 battery prices surveyed by BNEF include scenarios that could commercialize lithium-ion batteries for electric passenger vehicles, electric buses, electric commercial vehicles, and fixed storage across the industry.The historic low of $100 per kilowatt-hour is also the result of BNEF's industry-wide survey.As a result, BNEF predicts that battery packs will cost an average of $101 per kilowatt-hour by 2023.Near that tipping point, automakers should be able to produce and sell mass-market electric vehicles at the same price and profit margins as gas-fired vehicles.It should be noted that the forecast does not include government subsidies.
The rise of leading battery makers in recent years is undoubtedly the most important reason for falling battery prices.It is understood that the leading battery makers now have gross margins as high as 20% and their plants are operating at more than 85% utilisation.Therefore, maintaining high utilization is the key to lowering the price of batteries and battery packs.Because if utilization is low, then the depreciation cost of equipment and plant will make the battery cost per kilowatt-hour higher.
And when the battery market is not a monopoly, but the competition pattern of several companies competing for the world, diversified battery raw material route is also an effective way to reduce the cost.Li Daixin, senior energy storage assistant at BNEF, said: "The increasingly diversified raw materials used in the market have led to a wide range of expensive batteries.Battery makers, for example, are racing to pass on new raw materials such as lithium nickel-manganese-cobalt oxide (NMC (9.5.5)) and lithium nickel-manganese-cobalt aluminium oxide (NMCA).The new formulations will be mass-produced as early as 2021.However, none of the formulates can match the cost advantage of lithium iron phosphate (LFP), resulting in the reported minimum battery price of $80 per kilowatt-hour.
As a result, the industry's prediction that prices will reach $101 per kilowatt-hour by 2023 is likely to come true.But from $100 per kilowatt-hour to $58 per kilowatt-hour by 2030, there is much more uncertainty.This is because existing chemical formulations are difficult to achieve, and may only be possible with solid-state batteries, which have taken off in recent years.
BNEF estimates that when solid-state batteries start mass production, they will cost about 40% as much to make as current lithium-ion batteries.These reduced costs are mainly attributable to savings in raw material supply and production costs, as well as production equipment and high energy density cathode materials.To achieve these reductions, a supply chain for key materials not yet used in lithium-ion batteries, such as solid electrolytes, will need to be established.
Get on in 2021?
According to the Nikkei, Japan has started to speed up the commercialization of all-solid-state batteries through a joint effort between the government and companies.Among other things, Toyota aims to move solid-state batteries from the laboratory to a practical scenario sooner than any other auto company, with an initial plan of public trial production of all-solid-state electric vehicles in 2021, followed by a series of performance tests.Toyota is the industry leader in solid-state batteries, where it holds thousands of patents, the most in the world.
The biggest difference of solid-state batteries is to change the liquid electrolyte of current lithium-ion batteries into solid electrolyte, thus greatly reducing the risk of battery fire and effectively improving the safety of batteries.The biggest advantage of solid-state batteries is that they have several times the energy density of lithium-ion batteries and take only about a third as long to recharge as pure electric cars do today.If a current pure electric car can recharge 300 kilometers in 15 minutes, future solid-state electric cars will only take five minutes.Moreover, compared with lithium-ion batteries of the same size, the battery life of solid-state batteries can be more than doubled. The current battery life of mainstream electric vehicles is about 500 kilometers, so in the future, it can easily achieve 1,000 kilometers.
It can be said that when the solid-state battery really ushered in the scale of loading, that is the time when the fuel car really retired from the stage of history.
The industry is now accelerating that point.The Japanese government is talking about a supply-chain system around solid-state batteries, offering hundreds of billions of yen in subsidies to do so.And Japanese companies are starting to act.Mitsui Metals, for example, will start production of solid electrolyte materials at its institute in Saitama, Japan, and is expected to reach a scale of tens of tonnes a year by 2021 to meet pre-production orders.
In addition to Japan, China and Europe are also deploying solid-state batteries for commercial use.Volkswagen is investing heavily in solid-state battery startups in hopes of meeting the massive battery demand it will need in the next few years.Vw plans to have a solid - state battery production line by 2025.Not only Volkswagen, almost the whole industry is exploring the commercialization of solid-state batteries, including international automobile companies such as Daimler, Ford, BMW, Toyota, etc., but also supply chain players such as Samsung, Panasonic, Ganfeng Lithium, Huineng, Ningde Era, etc., are exploring the industrialization of solid-state batteries.According to incomplete statistics, there are a total of 46 companies in the world focusing on solid state battery research and development.
So whether it's cutting the price of existing lithium-ion battery packs or making solid state batteries a killer for gas-powered cars.They all point to a certain future in which electric cars will eventually go mainstream and the countdown to the demise of the gas-powered car begins.
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