The price of electric car batteries has dropped 89% in 10 years

[Finishline42]

Economy of scale in action. New battery tech is also coming around. Check out QuantumScape Corp for solid state Lithium batteries.

The price of electric car batteries has dropped 89% in 10 years

A decade ago, a lithium-ion battery pack used in an electric car cost around $1,110 per kilowatt-hour. By this year, according to a new survey, the cost had fallen 89%, to $137 per kilowatt-hour. And by 2023, the cost is likely to fall far enough that car companies can make and sell mass-market electric vehicles (EVs) at the same cost as cars running on fossil fuels.

“If you look at the remarkable cost reduction over the last decade, and what’s expected over the next few years, and pair that with escalating policy measures in Europe and expected in the U.S. and China, then you have this very powerful combination of factors to underpin EV uptake, starting now,” says Logan Goldie-Scot, head of clean power at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, who did the survey. “They will continue and accelerate over the next few years.”

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After purchase, EVs are already cheaper to operate than traditional cars, both because they require less maintenance and because electricity is cheaper than fuel. Today, some luxury EVs are already at price parity with their luxury gas counterparts, according to Goldie-Scot, but cheaper batteries will make that true more broadly without any subsidies. New innovations in battery technology will make costs drop even further.


snip

From the perspective of climate change, it’s necessary to reach the tipping point on the price of electric cars quickly, because cars stay on the road for years. In the U.S., transportation is now the largest source of emissions. “Even if 100% of vehicles sold were EVs, it would take over a decade to replace all the cars on the road, or even 50% of the cars on the road,” Kamath says. “So this is a long haul and a gradual evolution at the same time.”


https://www.fastcompany.com/90586803/the-price-of-electric-car-batteries-has-dropped-89-in-10-years?partner=rss&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=rss+fastcompany&utm_content=rss

[underpants]

1. Excellent

I have a hybrid that’s 10 years old.

[Finishline42]

3. Tesla's rumored 1,000,000 mile battery

is kind of the opposite idea. When the car wears out it becomes the home storage device.

[jimfields33]

4. The states will have to make up for the gas taxes they will lose

I’m not sure of price per mile is the way to go but somethings going to have to give.

[Massacure]

6. A number of states already impose registration fee surcharges on hybrid and/or electric vehicles

The surcharges on top of the normal registration fee vary from state to state and by hybrid vs full electric, but they are usually in the $50-150 a year range.

[Finishline42]

7. It's a good point

And has to be addressed at some point as EV's become a higher percentage of vehicles sold.

There have been talk to using GPS to track your mileage and charge base on that, but not sure I want to give permission for the govt to track everywhere I go. LOL

The gas tax is a bit of a blunt instrument to fund the building of our roads and bridges. Kind of unfair to add hybrids to the list vs a non hybrid that gets 40 mpg. And there's also no accounting for vehicle weight - which is the #1 issue on wear and tear on roads. Most of our smallest cars come in at just over 2,000 lbs. Heaviest at over 5,000 lbs.

Some baseline math on gas taxes.

Driving 15,000 miles per year. 20 mpg = 600 gal of gas. State gas tax per gallon ranges from $.1466 in Alaska to $.612 in CA If you use $.3 as a median that amounts to $180 per year plus $.184 Federal = $110

We could self report mileage but that would require the govt to keep track of the mileage when you bought your car and then when/if you sell it. If you under reported mileage, you would have to pay the difference at time of transfer.

What about a 10,000 pound delivery van that's an EV?

[progree]

5. Manufacturing a new ICE car emits as much CO2 as driving it for its lifetime

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2010/sep/23/carbon-footprint-new-car

and per Consumer Reports, January 2021, manufacturing an EV car emits somewhat more carbon than manufacturing an ICE car.

So anyway, even if the carbon footprint of the electricity was zero, overall CO2 emissions over the lifecycle of an EV (including manufacturing) would at best be 1/2 of that of the lifecycle of an ICE car.

It will help, but people shouldn't think that electrification of all vehicles is going anywhere close to making the carbon footprint of the ground transportation sector zero, rather, it will cut it by at most half. But I'm for anything that improves the situation rather than letting the perfect be the enemy of the better. But unfortunately there's no path here for a net carbon zero economy without huge offsets somewhere else.

I still haven't bought a car -- still making do with the occasional bus trip since June 2019. I walk my groceries home about 0.6 miles, good for upper body strength development. But at some point I'm going to crumble and buy one.

ICE car = a gasoline-powered Internal Combustion Engine car