If this works out such a huge reduction in car battery costs would be a game changer.
The new company, called 24M, has been spun out of the advanced battery company A123 Systems. It will develop a novel type of battery based on research conducted by Yet-Ming Chiang, a professor of materials science at MIT and founder of A123 Systems. He says the battery design has the potential to cut those costs by 85 percent.
This is not an imminent product. Click thru and read the details.
Suppose such a large cost reduction is possible. Well, 85% off of what? The pluggable hybrid electric Chevy Volt batteries might cost $8k. If that number is accurate then an 85% cost reduction would lower the Volt's battery cost to $1200. That $6800 cost reduction might lower the retail cost by a substantially larger amount due margins of the car maker and its dealers.
The pure electric Nissan Leaf battery pack might cost $15600. I emphasize the "might" in these cost estimates since GM and Nissan aren't stating on-the-record what they are paying for the batteries they are using. An 85% cost reduction on the Leaf battery probably wouldn't lower the Leaf's retail price by anywhere near as much because from the Volt's $41k price and the Leaf's $32.5k price it looks to me that Nissan is going to sell each Leaf at a substantial loss in parts cost per car while GM might be aiming to sell the Volts with a much smaller loss or maybe even a profit. So Nissan needs a big battery cost reduction just to put the Leaf's cost below its initial price.
If anyone comes across information about detailed parts costs of the Volt or the Leaf please post it in the comments or email it to me. Current prices do not tell us much about the costs of the EV and PHEV cars hitting the market this year and next. Without knowing those costs it is hard to guess at future cost reductions.
| Share | | Randall Parker, 2010 August 16 10:18 PM Energy Batteries |
Ah the $41K 40 mile range volt, where Government Motors offers $7,500 cash back to customers funded by borrowing money from China that our children and grandchildren have to pay back with interest.
And yet another battery scheme that is "only" 5 years away. This has some cred as the A123 guys from MIT are proven innovators.
I'm excited to see this.
I also will continue to believe that this, like every similar announcement since the 1970s, is BS, until the moment I see it, touch it, and can buy it for myself for the price estimated.
If it is so revolutionary and exiciting then why the spin off ? Maybe because A123 Systems has been an investment flop thus far and they can't get more funding ? I don't know but it doesn't look good ...
If GM spun off a new company to build and sell the Volt how would that look ?
Unicorns ...
I don't care how well you design a battery in the end it has a certain power density based on its materials ... if they were announcing a new type of battery material maybe that would be interesting ...
What is the esimated service life of the OEM batteries? So, the car owner would have to buy an $8000 replacement battery?
Ok, looks like there are some "new" materials being discussed ... he seems to think he can get more battery in the same space ...
still the spin off is troubling ...
philw1776
"Ah the 41K 40 mile range volt, where Government Motors offers $7,500 cash back to customers funded by borrowing money from China that our children and grandchildren have to pay back with interest."
Quite correct. And soon enough lenders will start to avoid accepting repayment of principle and interest in devaluing US dollars. Then matters will get really interesting. There are some large price movements looming. Could it be that a US soverign debt default is on the cards in the longer term?
Sione
"What is the esimated service life of the OEM batteries? So, the car owner would have to buy an $8000 replacement battery?"
Well, that is the question isn't it. The PR is the "life of the vehicle." But that is hard to pin down although it is reported that there giving an 8 yr / 100,000 mile warranty on batteries. I've got a 15 yr old ICE SUV that still has plenty of life in it or I'd have already replaced it and I've probably spent less the $3k total on all repairs and routine maintenance. In the end "life of the car" is a BS answer since that has no actual meaning. Perhaps it'll simply be when your battery dies, that is the end of the useful life of your car since repair cost will explode. But then people routinely spend thousand of dollars on repair to keep an old beater on the road since that same cost would only get you a new set of problems in the used car market.
Prius batteries cost about $3k but get this they keep them at about 60% charge only letting it very 10-15%. Seems like a lot of wastage to me and doesn't give any info on how a fully charge/discharge EV battery would fare.
http://pressroom.toyota.com/pr/tms/prius-battery-change-is-no-big-deal.aspx
Over 100 years later, and we still remain 5 more years away from an electric car battery that can provide decent range at a reasonable cost. Heard it all before, will believe it when I see it.
85% of most costs in the US is labor. I saw the link at Instapundit and guessed that it meant eco-wackos were volunteering to do the battery manufacture and assembly work for free. They all have a religious vow of impoverishment that they take, don't they?
Have you read anything that suggests that the 24M battery is suitable for automotive use? They haven't been showing much in the way of specs, but it's apparently a flow battery. I have two comments about that:
1. I don't doubt that 24M's or even existing flow batteries can already be made much cheaper than Li batteries, but they have much lower energy density, which is why they're being pushed for utility-scale grid storage, not electric vehicles. If it were all about battery cost, we'd be driving cars powered by lead-acid batteries. If you want to see a flow battery in a car, look for announcements about a breakthrough in their energy density, not their cost. Lower cost is certainly to be welcomed, but that's not the major barrier to getting flow batteries in cars.
2. As for grid storage, which is where I suspect 24M's flow batteries will really be headed, an 85% reduction in price relative to Li batteries would make it cheaper than existing flow batteries, which would be excellent news, but it would still be in same ballpark as lead-acid batteries (which are approximately 75% cheaper than lithium batteries). Lead-acid is still the cost leader for dollars per kWh, and that's the appropriate battery for flow batteries to compare cost against.
Can't wait to see what they've got, though. If they can really beat lithium cost by 85% and don't require rare earth elements (i.e., scalable), I think they'll be a contender. I wish them well.
I wrote the above post after reading articles about 24M that focused on utility applications, not vehicle. I see that the Tech Review article linked to in this futurepundit post does include transportation as well as utility, and that they expect their batteries to be much more dense than traditional flow batteries. I hope they can pull that off.
The good professor was smart enough to keep his day job. When the press release is telling you this is the best thing since slice bread hold onto your wallet.
Look at the red ink:
http://ir.a123systems.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=498139
This chart says it all:
http://ir.a123systems.com/stockquote.cfm?benchmark1=&Event1=&DisplayType=Line&Period=524&CustomFromDate=6%2F20%2F2004&CustomToDate=10%2F30%2F2004
To say the market has lost faith would be an understatement. I recently had some dealings with one of those MIT professor startups. Suffice to say I would put a penny in a startup from one of these inexperienced academics.
GlenR had a note a few weeks ago about a possible battery technology claiming storage density approaching that of some high explosive (TNT..). Wonder how many people understand that oil/gasoline/etc. have energy densities that are multiplies of this? (in part due to getting a significant fraction of its reaction mass out of the oxygen in the air). People seem to have no problem driving around with a tank full of high-explosives (or parking it in their garage). Yet we fear nuclear power. And no one talks about the increased 2-4x death toll we'll see if/when true e-vehicle batteries (rather than the comparatively safer petroleum products) are pulverized in our 100s of thousands of auto accidents a year.
I read the linked articles, and as nearly as I can tell, 24M intends to make batteries out of compressed adult intact male bovine excrement. My advice would be to count the spoons.
Paraphrasing John F, " If you want to see battery electric cars, look for announcements about a breakthrough in battery energy density, not cost."
What is needed is an order of magnitude improvement of energy density (for a start) with a useful life-span of a decade. For example, VAG seek a 500 mile range from their battery electric prototypes. Yes, 500 miles! Their reasoning is based on is utiliyy, in both senses of the term. They seek improved vehicle utility. Also they realise that an ambitious range means, at least in the short to medium term, that electrical infrastructure problems are reduced some, hence a little easier to manage.
Sione