CATL has new rectangular LFP batteries. The LFP EV battery price will be less than $56 per kWh within six months. It is a bigger rectangular battery with each one being like six Tesla 4680 batteries.
The LFP battery price in China is currently $70 per kWh.
China’s EV makers (CATL, BYD) are targeting two 0.1 rmb drops ($14 per kwh each). Each 0.1 rmb drop is US$840 for a whole 60 kWh pack.
The price is heading to $36 per kWh as early as next year.
They EV LFP battery prices at the start of 2023 were $110-124 per kWh.
Tesla should be saving about $2000 in battery costs right now compared to last year. Tesla will be saving $800 in LFP battery costs within 6 months and another $800 within about 18 months.
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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We keep hearing about battery price drops, but still no economic EVs below 25k?
About 70% of China’s EV are below $25k, Half are below $15k. China is about 60% of global EV. 8 million out of 30 million cars in China in 2023. os 5-6 million BEV below $25k.
I would like to think that “Style” will make a comeback. I am currently lusting at 1950’s Pontiacs with a straight 8. 🙂
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/vintage-snapshots-and-photography/vintage-photo-1950-pontiac-streamliner-8-highway-patrol-car-a-chevy-with-a-straight-eight-under-its-longer-hood/
ArtDeco style might be good!
China is well placed to offer low cost EV exports to most of the western world. They have spent the time getting their manufacturing act together and could turn out new designs relatively quickly. Not everyone is looking to own a “bland tin box”!
EVs offer many advantages already in their packaging of the drive train and battery skate. Low center of gravity in a high sided vehicle gives one both confidence in the handling as well as good command of the road through the taller driving position.
I know that nobody in their right mind would even look at the Ford “Edsel”, so the interests of buyers need to be foremost in designer’s minds. “Design studios” are a must!
Ferrari were very good at styling, picking award winning designers to style their exiting offerings.
https://www.automobiliferrari.com/magazine/has-ferraris-design-improved-since-they-separated-from-pininfarina
You do not need to “have” a car to “want” one. Lust drives car sales! Lee Iacocca knew that……Hence, the Ford Mustang….
A $50 per kWh battery with a 2000 cycle life depreciates only 2.5¢ per kWh stored and delivered. This is a game changer for solar energy storage and rented battery modules to drive vehicles.
When the time comes to replace they will be crazy cheap or be completely replaced by solid state more likely
First comes the heated demand for new, exclusive and well appointed luxury product at an inflated price point, then the nostalgia lull where customers fall back on the fully evolved ICE vehicles. THEN comes the decreasing availability of gasoline due to supply and environmental issues, causing price increases at the pump, and finally price reductions where EVs are built down to a competitive price with less complicated accessories using increasingly sophisticated robotic labor. The EVs will eventually win over ICE. The sodium ion and nuclear isotope batteries are “icing on the cake”, not really needed, but very promising for the future
This is not good news. The reason for the price war is a global slowdown in EV adoption. Now, battery makers have so much overcapacity they are slashing prices in a race to avoid bankruptcy. How many companies have already invested billions and billions of dollars in half finished factories and battery lines that will not be needed? This will put an instant halt to any new battery factories being built or new capacity going online. This is going to financially crush every company that has made huge investments in battery factories. All the small players will go bankrupt, the larger ones will have massive write-downs that will crush their stock price. Forget about gaining market share in a global price war, with the gigantic investments that have been committed to, companies will be simply fighting to survive the impending cash crunch. As always, Brian, I love your research. It’s time to start calculating who’s the most at risk and then short their stock.
However, a market economy usually works automatically.
Price drops like that will naturally stimulate demand quite a lot if the low prices reach the end users. Every house with solar power will want a battery if only the prices are reasonable.
If the prices don’t reach the consumers, some middlemen are getting rich. Then the producers need to bypass middlemen to get access to higher end user prices.
Here in Sweden, the politicians have closed down half our nuclear power and built a forest of windmills. This results in intermittent production and power shortage very often and the electricity prices skyrocket.
The power mix can be seen in real time at: https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/
A windy day, wind power generates about 40% of normal production (25000 MW). If we could buffer half of these 10000 MW windpower, we would need 5000 * 24h = 120000 MWh of battery capacity. This is just for one small country and this would stabilize the grid and defer building a bunch of nuclear reactors.
Price drop, watch storage prices drop. Ending black outs.
The big question is if battery producers are profitable at those prices. Commodity input prices have also dropped.
This might be good news.
How much of the actual “investment” in battery and EV factories has been paid by government programmes, none of which are subject to market discipline?
Did you see the announcement this week that Hertz will dispose of its EV fleet?
The real indicator is the Canadian government’s subsidies to battery and Honda EV factories. Unfortunately it is difficult to short government shares without a huge FX account.
Mobile battery chemistry is weight and somewhat volume sensitive. Stationary home systems do not need the fancy lithium chemistry and await more plebeian systems, without subsidy.
Not only did Hertz ax their plans to buy 100,000 Teslas, but the Cybertruck will probably be a North American only vehicle. It looks likely that it won’t pass pedestrian safety standards in China or the EU. Given how much the Biden administration hates Teslas anti-union stance, I would be surprised if the Cybertruck lives long enough to see a second generation model, without a nearly complete redesign.
A storm is brewing. A world of hurt awaits legacy manufacturers and most startups. When EVs sell for less than ICE cars, the laws of economics will exert their brutal toll. Most consumers, with all other factors being equal, choose lowest price.