Successfully commercializing solid-state battery technology could be key to making electric battery cars as affordable as today’s gasoline cars. Experts say this means the cost of producing a kilowatt hour of electricity needs to fall to around $100 from a little under $200/kWh today.
Global automakers are racing to lower battery manufacturing costs to pad out today’s thin margins on battery cars.
“We see this tipping point around 2025,” says Nissan Motor Co 7210.T Executive Vice President Daniele Schillaci.
“By then, for the customer, it will be practically the same cost to buy petrol or EV. If you have the same price for EVs and petrol, why would you buy traditional technology?”
Unlike today’s lithium-ion batteries, solid-state battery cells don’t need to be layered closely together and linked by electric connectors, giving car designers more flexibility to create more space for passengers or storage.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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Wow! Great idea, wrong application..lol Can anyone please tell me where all the extra electricity is coming from after even 10% of the US population buys electric cars? Oh, I know, “The magic jellybean fields!” If you want to aid the environment, make long lasting, high amp hour, low-cost batteries for storing FREE electricity from the sun, wind, etc. And get rid of using natural gas, oil, and electricity for pretty much everything around the home and offices.
There will be many battery configurations sporting many types of internal design and chemistries. It may come to pass that more than one will be accepted for global, mass scale implementation.
“Experts say this means the cost of producing a kilowatt hour of electricity needs to fall to around $100 from a little under $200/kWh today.” Uhh, pardon? I pay around $0.10 for a kWh.
They mean the cost of storage capacity.
Kevin ” I have also found myself wondering if we will turn to nuclear for international shipping vessels if oil becomes too expensive in the future.”
I exect oil to become cheap in the future because of electrification of all transport and fall in demand. Shiping vessels with nuclear reactors in them? That would be way to expensive. The shipping vessels on long routes will be the last to switch to electric but eventually they will as well.
Nuclear reactors outside of national borders? Not going to happen – except on military vessels. Ships could be battery-powered.
Yeah I have had that debate with some coworkers and friends about what will happen as oil consumption drops off. On the one hand compared with demand the supply will be larger but you also loose the economy of scale. Maybe they will run on liquid hydrogen produced by large solar powered facilities…
I’ve had this discussion with car collector friends. Right now’ there are very small engine oil producing firms that manufacture oils with very specific characteristics to suit some vintage automobiles, like ones with flat tappet valvetrains or the need for high concentrations of zinc. I see a boutique industry of gasoline production rising up to produce just enough for what will likely become a rich man’s hobby. Low demand and lack of economy of scale will drive this.
Economy of scale is a real issue, but world oil consumption would have to fall by 90% or more before that became a factor in the price of oil. And it would still be counteracted by the supply/demand fall in oil price until oil consumption became as common as say… whaling is today.
“When you can drive border to border with an EV they will be more than PC status symbols.”
You already can do coast to coast in a Tesla NOW.
“Semi trucks drive coast to coast all the time”. You are not even allowed by law to drive a semi without rest for more than 4 hrs so as long as a semi has about 300 miles range and a new sysem of ultafast chargers (like 600 kWt or more) that will be perfectly enough nor nationwide electric semi sytem. Elon is presenting an electric Semi next month, end of November so will see what he has planned for this…
Good point Igor although that is why on some shipments there are two drivers, also I think some fresh produce is shipped in refrigerated trucks which is even more demanding on the batteries. The cost and reliability over the total ownership period of an electric semi truck should have some interesting effects on the economics of shipping things versus producing them locally and infrastructure design in the future so I think these stories are very interesting. I have also found myself wondering if we will turn to nuclear for international shipping vessels if oil becomes too expensive in the future.
Self-driving might leapfrog the whole truckstop charging thing.
EVs are not for everyone…just 90% of us.
Forget CO2 and polar bears, the US is still importing 1 of every 2 gallons it uses, totally empowering the like of Russia and Saudi Arabia. Then we spew toxic particulate matter in already polluted air as we pick up our kids from schools and parks. We are not just turning our snow black…we are blowing that soot in each other’s faces every day. Make the change…today!
India, China, and several European countries are already capping or eliminating traditional cars in less than 10 years. Join the fight by driving electric (at least while commuting) and push for public charging stations at schools and work…where many of us park our cars all day long. It’s really that simple.
I think with time all transport including shipping and air travel will be electric. The electric buses are already sold, the best spected one by American company proterra, semis are being introduced by Tesla and others. There some smaller electric container ships being tried in Norway and several companies are developing electric passenger planes with one of them promising smaller passenger hybrid electric planes on shorter routes within just a few years.
The norwegian electric “container ships” are, technically, ships carrying containers. But they are nothing like the big intercontinental ships that spring to mind when that term is used.
These are tiny little things that shuttle back and forth along the fjords, traveling short distances between loading and unloading, which gives them heaps of time to recharge.
Soot? Black snow. LOL. C’mon man the planet is cleaner than it’s been in the last 50 years. You’re being silly.
But it’s much dirtier than it’s been in the past 300 years, still a blip in the grand scheme of things, though.
Soot comes from the school bus diesel, not the parents driving modern cars.
The desire to cut off the flow of petrodollars to the petrostates I have no argument with.
Gina Coplon-Newfield, Director of Sierra Club’s Electric Vehicles Initiative explains, “Depending on how electricity is produced in your region, plug-ins are from 30 percent to 80 percent lower in greenhouse gas emissions.” She notes if companies like GM step up with plans to launch EV fleets, reductions in carbon emissions and improvements in air quality could be “hugely beneficial.”
Biofuels can be used as interim fuels for hybrids until all electric cars become practical. Hemp and prairie grass have high growth rates.
The US has spent over 100 years and billions of dollars building the infrastructure for distribution of gasoline and diesel. Refueling a petroleum powered vechicle takes minutes not hours. When you can drive border to border with an EV they will be more than PC status symbols.
You say this as though the US hasn’t spent over 100 years and billions of dollars building the infrastructure for the distribution of electricity…
Also much before, meaning years ago. At least since the LEAF.
That’s exactly the big deal about solid state batteries. They charge a car much faster and the charges last longer. As for infrastructure, supercharger networks are now being built all over the world. I think the sunk cost argument doesn’t hold up when you look at cell phones. How much was spent on landlines before something better came along?
That’s right sunk cost is actually an economic science term the whole point of which is that sunk cost are irrelevant to future decisions and should be ignored.
Sunk costs that went into building infrastructure are NOT irrelevant if the alternative is to spend a lot of money building an alternative infrastructure.
In that case you are looking at infrastructure you have already built vs infrastructure you’ll have to pay for again. This is not what the sunk cost term means.
What was spent before is a sunk cost which in economics class I remember we were told should be ignored in decision making. As far as drive coast to coast, it’s a false criteria since practically nobody does that.
Semi trucks drive coast to coast all the time… How do you think all those fresh fruits and veggies from California get to Maine all winter? If we don’t get good batteries, you can kiss the suburbs and the interstate highway system as we know them goodbye. Maybe it would be for the better as they are incredible inefficient designs.
About $.80 per gallon gas equivalent. First scheduled maintenance at 150k miles. — an important part of the equation when considering ev owner’s cost. It is not just purchase price. You should be talking about cost of storage (not cost of producing electricity).