As a rule of thumb, a 10x increase in production of something halves the price. Purely through economies of scale. Much of what's been seen in lithium-ion batteries is just that.
Has Tesla got their act together with their US "Gigafactory" in Nevada yet? They had a lot of problems, most of them in plant management related to starting up a big plant in an isolated area.[1] Plus feuding with Panasonic.[2]
Eventually somebody will get this right, and there will be automated plants with very few employees. This is the ideal situation for automation - making huge numbers of identical products. It just takes a long time to get the automation working.
A big problem in the US is that few people go into manufacturing engineering. It's a big thing in China, but not in the US. Average pay for manufacturing engineers is about $78K, according to Glassdoor. Senior level, maybe $82K. This is for a job which today requires understanding real-time computer control, electronics, mechanical engineering, and organizational behavior.
I am always surprised to hear how much programmers get paid in the US (third world disclaimer: It's a lot!).
> Average pay for manufacturing engineers is about $78k
This is more on par with pay for (top) programmers or engineers that I know of. In South Africa, actuaries get paid much more than programmers. From what I have seen on HN, US based programmers (in top-ish companies) get paid actuarial salaries. As a mathematician, I have a lot to say about actuaries, but alas, that is for another day.
Maybe someone more knowledgeable can clarify this. Median pay at tech companies is sometimes > $100k annually. In my view as a not-a-US-citizen, that is a lot of money.
Economies of scale often get mentioned as if it is some sort of magical property that makes things cheaper. Reality is often far more complicated. Amazon, for example, hasn't really had an improvement in fulfillment costs over time. They've gotten more expensive as they've pushed ideas that grow the company: faster shipping, more products, etc. Also, resource constraints tend to have overwhelming impacts: the cost of extracting oil from the earth got a lot cheaper on economies of scale right up to the point where they had to go after more expensive sources to get enough to fill demand. Economists have a name for this effect: diseconomies of scale.
It is pretty safe to say that economies of scale has gotten us to where we are now with batteries. But that does not necessarily mean the trajectory will continue.
Yep, there are very often "learning curves" that can be used to accurately predict price trends as manufacturing volume increase. The same thing has played out with solar cells and led to big price drops.
The PLC/DCS/SCADA world hasn't really caught up to modern open-source software in a lot of cultural ways. Lots of proprietary components and "pay-to-learn" practices. I expect there's software-engineer types who would venture into the hard-real-time control systems world if it were as open-source and tinker-friendly as something like Rails. Nowadays someone like Microsoft has to go open source to have any hope of capturing developer mind share for something like .NET.
I wish I went into manufacturing engineering. I wanted to work on robot AI and am there now but studying software is the easy part, you can easily get access to all the software and documentation online for free. Learning automation and manufacturing is more costly in terms of time and money.
Tesla is likely just an example of a general trend. Whether it's big leaps towards "fully automated" manufacturing or gradual, cheap labour is not as important. It's increasingly a "talent" paced industry.
And we are not even close to the scale of an industry with world-wide relevance. Semiconductors is a nearly 500billion$ industry for example. If batteries reach 100billion$ we could probably expect prices well below 50$/kwh. That means you can put a sufficiently large powerwall into your home for around the price of a new laptop. That in turn enables homeowners to generate most of their energy needs themselves via (also cheap) pv arrays. This technology has the chance to completely turn around the home energy market.
I think this is an important point. The lithium-ion battery market is _still_ smaller than the lead-acid battery market. This business is still ramping up.
In 2012 it was expected we'd be at $160/kWh by 2025[1]. Instead we're below that by 2019. I wouldn't be surprised if that $100/kWh by 2023 prediction from the source isn't too conservative.
And once that happens, it is going to turn the auto industry upside down. Some ice companies like VW realize this and are rushing like crazy to be ready when it happens. The companies that aren't doing this today are likely going to go bankrupt.
I predict 10$ is going to happen fairly soon after that. That would be massively disruptive to anything involving the consumption of energy; which is basically most of the world's economy.
It will ignite the next economic boom just like oil and coal did once.
That’s pricey per kWh - lithium tech generally is. I’ve just installed an off-grid solar system, and ended up putting together a spreadsheet of a whole bunch of battery options, got prices per kWh, and then built in a factor for lifetime/max cycles.
Ignoring max cycles, the cheapest lead acid I found was £87/kWh. Lifetime was poor, however.
The best bang for buck was OPzS lead acid cells - £115 per kWh, and a long, long lifetime and high cycle count. They’re the most commonly used cell in new grid-scale solar installs, and it turns out there’s a reason for that - over 15 years, they cost less than 20% of lithium over the same period.
That seems kind of expensive still. Grid power is around 7 cents / kwh for comparison so you need over 3,000 hours of usage to break even on a depreciating battery. Or for comparison, new 18650 cells are around $2 each in bulk, so you could get almost the same kwh storage (probably 5% less) for the same price, with a lot more cycles left.
Let’s hope at the same time we are building up a corresponding recycling infrastructure and products to be recycled easily. Otherwise I am afraid we are building up another trash problem.
Most batteries beyond laptop size have significant value once they are 'used'. Most retain 20-90% of their original capacity, meaning they can live on in grid storage which has relatively insignificant size limitations.
Most of the new capacity is for large applications (cars) which means low battery type diversity, and this high reusablity due to consistency and of course high market-value. Quite a few businesses will pop up to create this solutions as the increase of batteries make it through their first life.
This logic is flawed because not all environmental issues are the same priority.
If you believe climate change is the biggest environmental issue, batteries could be significantly "dirtier" overall than alternatives as long as they contribute less to C02.
Lithium will be very valuable and motivate recycling for quite a wile. I don't think this will be a problem, certainly not more than the current disposal pipeline for ICE cars.
This makes me wonder how falling battery prices will affect the cost of used electric vehicles. On one hand, the replacement battery costs will go down, and in turn should make for better resale value (since the replacement cost of a wearable part is factored into the resale value.) But on the other hand, auto companies (especially Tesla) have been passing that savings down to the customer, leading to cheaper brand new prices of vehicles.
While it may appear on the surface that Tesla has not reduced their prices all that much, keep in mind that the only current offering for the Model S is the 100KWh battery. The Model 3 prices have been incrementally decreasing, while simultaneously standardizing features like autopilot, which used to be a $2K upgrade.
Laptop batteries can still be premium item. Especially Dell. If you don't buy a business class laptop, it's very likely you cannot order the battery online. You have to call dell support. Dell support is an India call center that will ask for $70 for a shipping label so you can send the machine in to get diagnosed, even if the bios is saying battery health is poor and you don't need a diagnosis. They refuse to just sell you a new battery from the phone or online. They refuse to give you a cost estimate because they want you to have sunk cost before they give an expensive quote. You send in the machine and it's $60 for battery and $80 for servicing. Aliexpress has the batteries for $20 but there's horror stories about exploding batteries. You can easily pay $200/yr if you want to keep your machines at 50% charge or better. Be sure to see how easy it is to switch a battery before buying a new laptop.
If there is anyone on here who works in the battery production, EV, or utility industries, can you comment on exactly what is driving the dramatic cost/kWh declines? Every article I've read seems to imply that the cost declines are just being driven by economies of scale (massive fixed costs of plant construction being averaged out over large production runs) and learning economies (https://rameznaam.com/2014/09/30/the-learning-curve-for-ener...).
Apart from these two forces, are there any innovations in manufacturing processes or product components+architecture that are partly responsible for the decline?
The last really significant announcement out of the main Tesla university research group was in cycles lifetime.
The suggested range of many Tesla forthcoming models (truck, roadster2) seem to assume a chemistry improvement, as well as other future announcements by less experienced (in EV) manufacturers.
I personally speculate that the Nurburgring Model S prototype beat the Porsche using a substantially lighter battery to get its 20 second advantage, but I have no confirmation on that.
Awesome news, storage is so crucial to decarbonization. Some really interesting emerging energy storage tech has been presented and discussed over at https://collective.energy if this kind of stuff interests you
That aligns with my theory that since all the easily extracted oil has been exploited, the oil industry is saddled with a price floor, and once alternatives beat that, the oil industry will rapidly collapse as supply is more expensive than alternatives, and oil won't have any way to profitably compete.
This has not been my experience as a consumer trying to buy 18650 batteries for my 3.3V ESP-8266 projects. Is there a good place to buy these? Searching Amazon for them shows me tons of AA and AAA batteries but no actual 18650's. In the past couple years, the price has gone up for me and the availability down.
Are there better options? I've read about 26650's but I have never tried them. Do they last longer? Are they safer? Can I charge them in my NiteCore charger that works great for 18650's?
How can a consumer/tinkerer wanting to scale up production take advantage of these options? The prices may have gone down at Tesla scale, but not at consumer scale.
Semi-relevant question: there are many battery-based "generators" up to 500Wh on Amazon. Are there any in the 1.5-2KWh range? We often get outages during winter and it'd be good to have something that could drive a furnace for a day or so.
The situation in Bolivia probably had a significant effect.
There's lots of lithium mines there. The new (read: coup) government knows this I'm sure and is looking to get rich off of it at the expense of the indigenous population.
Potentially more decentralized or at least time-smoothed electric grids. More batteries can mean greater independence between production means and consumption time. (The obvious case is better time shifting of things like wind or solar power.)
The second and third order effects are a bit hard to predict. Electric fork lifts ?! Cheaper Plastics .. Oil moving from transportation to Chemical sector .. collapse of petro-states .. its going to be interesting.
>True Energy independence could turn world politics upside down.
We have true energy independence in the US. And it has turned world politics upside down. Fracking and LNG has made the US a net energy exporter over the last 10 years.
No mention of Lithium and Cobalt rare earth mining. Are these resources abundant enough to support this ramp up without counter balancing economics of scale savings?
If this scales down to under a kilowatt-hour it means even a large ebike/scooter/etc. pack could move to double-digit US dollars in the next few years.
Most eBike batteries are half to 3/4ths a kilowatt hour, though if prices were lower you'd almost certainly see 1kwh & 2kwh batteries becoming standard.
The market is already headed this way, EM3ev keeps putting out larger and larger packs at the same price points year after year.
[+] [-] Animats|6 years ago|reply
Has Tesla got their act together with their US "Gigafactory" in Nevada yet? They had a lot of problems, most of them in plant management related to starting up a big plant in an isolated area.[1] Plus feuding with Panasonic.[2]
Eventually somebody will get this right, and there will be automated plants with very few employees. This is the ideal situation for automation - making huge numbers of identical products. It just takes a long time to get the automation working.
A big problem in the US is that few people go into manufacturing engineering. It's a big thing in China, but not in the US. Average pay for manufacturing engineers is about $78K, according to Glassdoor. Senior level, maybe $82K. This is for a job which today requires understanding real-time computer control, electronics, mechanical engineering, and organizational behavior.
[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2019/12/04/tesla-e...
[2] https://electrek.co/2019/10/09/tesla-panasonic-relationship-...
[+] [-] mikorym|6 years ago|reply
> Average pay for manufacturing engineers is about $78k
This is more on par with pay for (top) programmers or engineers that I know of. In South Africa, actuaries get paid much more than programmers. From what I have seen on HN, US based programmers (in top-ish companies) get paid actuarial salaries. As a mathematician, I have a lot to say about actuaries, but alas, that is for another day.
Maybe someone more knowledgeable can clarify this. Median pay at tech companies is sometimes > $100k annually. In my view as a not-a-US-citizen, that is a lot of money.
[+] [-] rwmurrayVT|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darksaints|6 years ago|reply
It is pretty safe to say that economies of scale has gotten us to where we are now with batteries. But that does not necessarily mean the trajectory will continue.
[+] [-] jartelt|6 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanson%27s_law
[+] [-] mrdoops|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Iv|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Iv|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] netcan|6 years ago|reply
Tesla is likely just an example of a general trend. Whether it's big leaps towards "fully automated" manufacturing or gradual, cheap labour is not as important. It's increasingly a "talent" paced industry.
Manufacturing is becoming less la
[+] [-] 827djdjs6|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] ogre_codes|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] choeger|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] retrovm|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gok|6 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/o...
[+] [-] woodandsteel|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jillesvangurp|6 years ago|reply
It will ignite the next economic boom just like oil and coal did once.
[+] [-] opwieurposiu|6 years ago|reply
For example a Tesla Model S battery module, 24V, 250Ah,5.2kWh, Panasonic 18650 3200mAh cell is going for $1,045.00 + 150 shipping.
That is $229/kwh shipped. For most of these batteries you will also have to buy a BMS and/or cell balancer.
[+] [-] madaxe_again|6 years ago|reply
Ignoring max cycles, the cheapest lead acid I found was £87/kWh. Lifetime was poor, however.
The best bang for buck was OPzS lead acid cells - £115 per kWh, and a long, long lifetime and high cycle count. They’re the most commonly used cell in new grid-scale solar installs, and it turns out there’s a reason for that - over 15 years, they cost less than 20% of lithium over the same period.
[+] [-] mdorazio|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] driverdan|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Ididntdothis|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gibolt|6 years ago|reply
Most of the new capacity is for large applications (cars) which means low battery type diversity, and this high reusablity due to consistency and of course high market-value. Quite a few businesses will pop up to create this solutions as the increase of batteries make it through their first life.
[+] [-] spectrum1234|6 years ago|reply
If you believe climate change is the biggest environmental issue, batteries could be significantly "dirtier" overall than alternatives as long as they contribute less to C02.
[+] [-] AtlasBarfed|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tade0|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] BonoboBoner|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Lramseyer|6 years ago|reply
While it may appear on the surface that Tesla has not reduced their prices all that much, keep in mind that the only current offering for the Model S is the 100KWh battery. The Model 3 prices have been incrementally decreasing, while simultaneously standardizing features like autopilot, which used to be a $2K upgrade.
[+] [-] JimmyRuska|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] novok|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gilead2297|6 years ago|reply
Edit: grammar.
[+] [-] AtlasBarfed|6 years ago|reply
The last really significant announcement out of the main Tesla university research group was in cycles lifetime.
The suggested range of many Tesla forthcoming models (truck, roadster2) seem to assume a chemistry improvement, as well as other future announcements by less experienced (in EV) manufacturers.
I personally speculate that the Nurburgring Model S prototype beat the Porsche using a substantially lighter battery to get its 20 second advantage, but I have no confirmation on that.
[+] [-] tehjoker|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ericvanular|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AtlasBarfed|6 years ago|reply
That aligns with my theory that since all the easily extracted oil has been exploited, the oil industry is saddled with a price floor, and once alternatives beat that, the oil industry will rapidly collapse as supply is more expensive than alternatives, and oil won't have any way to profitably compete.
[+] [-] anon1m0us|6 years ago|reply
Are there better options? I've read about 26650's but I have never tried them. Do they last longer? Are they safer? Can I charge them in my NiteCore charger that works great for 18650's?
How can a consumer/tinkerer wanting to scale up production take advantage of these options? The prices may have gone down at Tesla scale, but not at consumer scale.
[+] [-] smh58|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 1-6|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m0zg|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uoaei|6 years ago|reply
There's lots of lithium mines there. The new (read: coup) government knows this I'm sure and is looking to get rich off of it at the expense of the indigenous population.
[+] [-] subject117|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WorldMaker|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sremani|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thinkcontext|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] readhn|6 years ago|reply
True Energy independence could turn world politics upside down.
The only solution for big oil to survive is to take over big battery business. Interesting what they will come up with!
[+] [-] aphextron|6 years ago|reply
We have true energy independence in the US. And it has turned world politics upside down. Fracking and LNG has made the US a net energy exporter over the last 10 years.
[+] [-] jupp0r|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frankus|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] StudentStuff|6 years ago|reply
The market is already headed this way, EM3ev keeps putting out larger and larger packs at the same price points year after year.