Stephen Chu predicts 70% drop in EV battery costs between 2008 and 2015

[wtmusic]

"U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu estimates that plug-in vehicle battery costs will have dropped 70 percent between 2008 and 2015 and will fall another 58 percent between 2015 and 2020, giving hope to electric-drive vehicle advocates that the price premium for plug-ins relative to conventional vehicles will narrow during the next few years. Chu also said that the U.S. Energy Department is opening a research center dedicated to improve battery and energy-storage technologies for the transportation industry.

Chu, in a speech at the Detroit Economic Club during the Detroit Auto Show (he's pictured above, right, speaking with Nissan's Mark Perry while checking out the Leaf), said that a plug-in hybrid-electric vehicle battery that can provide 40 miles of all-electric range will cost $3,600 in 2015, down from $12,000 in 2008. That battery's cost will fall to just $1,500 by the end of the decade, Chu added. "The advanced battery competition is a race the United States can and should win," Chu said.

Greater adoption of electric-drive technologies will likely be necessary for the U.S. to meet proposed CAFE standards for light-duty vehicles of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, which is equivalent to about 40 miles per gallon measured by EPA standards. That would still be almost an 80 percent jump from 2010 model-year fleetwide fuel economy in the U.S."

http://green.autoblog.com/2012/01/12/energy-secretary-chu-estimates-70-drop-in-ev-battery-costs-betw/

[txlibdem]

1. Thanks for posting this

Over time, the electric vehicle will get longer range for less cost until it will be cheaper to buy than any gasoline car.

IBM: Lithium air battery prototype in 2013, production in 2020
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-57358899-48/ibm-lithium-air-battery-prototype-in-2013-production-in-2020/

[hunter]

2. I hope the technology is easily scaled...

... with components sold at any wrecking yard or auto parts store.

My brother has built two "antique-style" motorcycles from parts, using modern braking and ignition components, etc., and even got them registered for his personal street use, which was more trouble than the builds themselves. It's easy to replicate 1910's tech with modern tools, not so easy to work your way through modern licensing requirements, especially when the clerks at the DMV are full of

having never seen such machines before.

We were thinking a custom built electric motorcycle of a similar sort would be awesome. But satisfactory electrical components are still very expensive.

Less expensive electric auto components might also be very useful for off-grid power applications.

[wtmusic]

3. High-density traction batteries are finicky beasts.

For lead-acid you can get away with serial charging for awhile, but they don't like it (one bad battery in the chain can ruin the whole pack).

Li-Ion is a completely different game. Overcharge them, and they're destroyed. Run them down completely - same thing. Charge a cell too fast, it bursts into flame - and takes the rest of the pack (and most likely your car) with it. All production electric cars use a sophisticated electronic BMS (battery management system) to keep them in line.

Re: your DMV comment - when I first went to register my Ford Aspire EV conversion I had three clerks around the computer at a California DMV trying to figure out how to assign an electric powertrain to a car that was hard-programmed as internal combustion. It didn't matter to me except I would have to have the car smog-tested, which for obvious reasons wasn't possible.

In the end, they couldn't do it. I had to wait a few weeks for someone in Sacramento to get into the database and change my registration manually.