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Compact Power CEO on the Cost of Lithium-ion Batteries

October 2nd, 2009 | Posted in: Battery, Financial

Prabakhar Patil is the CEO of Compact Power Inc, the subsidiary of LG Chem that has been working with GM to produce the Volt’s battery packs.

I recently had the chance to ask him about the cost of lithium-ion batteries. As some sources suggest cost could be as high as $1000 kwh, I asked him what the actual cost is in today’s market. My question with his explanation follows:

What is the cost of lithium ion automotive batteries?
Is its risky or dangerous to quote direct numbers.

At the cell level, in consumer applications, 100% of the nominal capacity at the beginning of life is somewhere on the order of $350 per kwh.

First, we have to keep adding factors for in a vehicle application, when you look at it as a 10 year life and you have this 25% degradation, then your denominator goes down by 25%.

Secondly, if you’re not using all of the capacity, just the combination of those two factors will effectively cut the denominator in half in terms of usable capacity at the end of life as opposed to nominal capacity at the beginning of life. And that will raise the price in dollars per kwh, if you do it in terms of usable capacity at the end of life, by a factor of two

Third, if you add all of the other stuff you have to put in the pack, and it depends on what you consider inside the pack as opposed to outside, because that depends on vehicle architecture. So that’s why it gets very fuzzy and inconclusive to talk about gross level numbers unless you know specifically on how they are being defined.

The other perspective is that lithium ion in the 17 years since it was first introduced has come down by a factor of 14 in terms of dollars per kwh and it’s not done. It will continue to come down not at the same rate, but I fully expect over the next 5 to 10 years for the cost to get better by anywhere from a factor of 2 to 4 in terms of dollars per kwh as compared to where we are now.

One of the things that has nothing to do with the cell or any technology itself, is at the end of life if the battery still has 70 to 75% of its power and energy left. Why throw it away when you can recapture it? If you could capture that residual value by effectively leasing the battery and putting it to work again in a utility application, at 50% of its initial value, it will cut the effective cost by a factor of two.

Posted by: Lyle

135 Responses to “Compact Power CEO on the Cost of Lithium-ion Batteries”

-1 old man Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 7:25 am

It sounds like the battery cost is still unknown and the only good news from this is it is expected to come down over time and have a value as possibly a trade in.

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+7 Carl Covey Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 7:35 am

I do like the way this gentleman is thinking about the use of the “expended” battery at the EOL. Even at 10 years when the battery is such that it performs poorly for BEV use it would be a wonderful energy storage device for a home power system or as he implied, use by utilities. I would prefer the home use to encourage further movement toward energy self-sufficiency at the home level. One can always back-meter electricity generated at home and what a great thing if your expended battery was used to recharge your new BEV battery overnight from solar energy gathered during the day.
NPNS =D~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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kdawg Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 7:36 am

“So that’s why it gets very fuzzy and inconclusive to talk about gross level numbers unless you know specifically on how they are being defined.”

Lyle – maybe you should have phrased you question, “how much does a 16kwh battery, that will use 50% of its capacity and last 10 years cost?”

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Herm Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 7:52 am

I thought he answered that a while back, the cells would cost $8000.. the rest of the battery packaging is up to GM. The interesting part is 2-4 reduction in cost by 2019.

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Herm Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 7:58 am

He is being really optimistic.. at 50% off a Volt battery will be $6000, and I really doubt you could get another 10 years out it. In any case, NEW equivalent batteries would cost the same or lower at the time.. and he said that.

So what is the real value of a 10 year old Volt battery?

The only people that could use this business model are the companies that will lease you a standardized, fast swap battery.. such as Project Better Place.

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old man Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 8:03 am

Lyle

I go to allcarselectric everyday and today saw your post on EEStor. I am losing hope. If is is a hoax then I will be disappointed and the Zenn guy will be extremely upset.

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carcus1 Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 8:12 am

“At the cell level, in consumer applications, 100% of the nominal capacity at the beginning of life is somewhere on the order of $350 per kwh.”
————————-

Yessssssssssssss!

This is right at the $340/kwh CJS and I have mentioned from time to time on the Thundersky cells.

This is cheap enough to make lightweight BEV’s cost competitive.

Watch for 100 mile-ish BEV’s to rapidly move into the marketplace at sub $20k (batteries included) as soon as production ramps up to meet demand.

/Lyle, this is your biggest scoop yet! If you are an electric car fan, this is the key to your electric future.

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Van Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 8:17 am

Mr. Patil’s take on cost has been posted before. But the problem is others suggest a higher cost – back to around $1000/kwh. For guesstimating I will continue to use $750/kwh for the initial capacity.

Lets say a Cruze will cost $18,000 and you add (16 x 750) $12,000 for the battery, that gets you to $30,000. But the Volt costs $40,000. The cost of the Motor and Generator and controller should add less than $5000, (taking the Volt up to $35,000) so something is far wrong with my calculation. And if you halve the battery cost, per Mr. Patil, the numbers miss by an even larger amount.

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+6 spike Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 8:20 am

Just how specific do you want him to get?

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vladg Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 8:43 am

I would guess your calculations are right on target. 18 K for the car, 12 K for the battery and another 10 K is FUD factor – including, but not limited to – possible battery pack recalls, possible recalls for brand new “all-electric” subsystems (A/C, steering, generator), losses on low volume production, additional cost for dealer’s training etc etc.
From my point of view this is exactly why Generation 2 Volt has lot of chances to be 10-12K cheaper. If we also consider effect of mass production of Li-Ion cells and technological advances in battery technology then one would reasonably predict the cost of Gen 3 EREV comparable to the cost of hybrid and Gen 4 EREV price tag on a par with a traditional ICE car.

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Herm Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 8:48 am

But he did not say that was what his batteries cost..

if he had answered: ” At the cell level, in AUTOMOTIVE applications, 100% of the nominal capacity at the beginning of life is somewhere on the order of $350 per kwh ”

He is talking about consumer grade cells as used in laptops and cell phones, and he is right. See this thread in the forum regarding consumer cells for automotive applications:

http://www.gm-volt.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3448

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+1 DonC Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:03 am

The big deal, and the new part which he hasn’t mentioned previously, is the residual value of the battery. Nissan wants to lease the battery in order to capture that residual, which it can then use to pass on a lower initial price to the consumer. For example, if a pack cost $10K, then Nissan can lease the battery for ten years based on a residual of $3K, which would drive down the monthly payments needed for the battery pack just like leasing the entire car drives down the monthly payments as compared to the monthly payments needed to buy.

I’m just not sure at this point if people are prepared to buy the car and then lease the battery separately. If you could lease the battery indefinitely that would be a great deal since you’d always be assured of having a functioning battery. However, since an EV is useless without a battery, there are many issues which will have to be sorted out.

For the Volt the battery issue seems more straightforward. If you don’t abuse the battery it should last longer than the length of the warranty, it’s just that it won’t give you the same range. For an EV this might be a big deal, but for an E-REV, which has a range extender mode and doesn’t depend solely on the battery, less battery capacity simply means that you might use range extended mode more. And in practice even this seeming limitation might not turn out to be a true limitation. As cars age they are driven less and usually stay closer to home, so it’s quite possible that a twenty mile EV range would suffice for a ten or fifteen year Volt which served as the “local” car.

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+1 Herm Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:11 am

Nothing wrong with your calculations, the cost of the Volt pack has been known for a while at $12k to GM, $8k for the cells alone, $500/kwh.

The $10k covers the cost of really unique automotive parts that are not in mass production, such as:

1. the FWD electric transaxle, with the traction motor, the generator and the differential gearing… this is the expensive part.
2. the generator inverter or GCM.. we dont know anything about the generator and controller GM has chosen.
3. the traction motor inverter.. cant be cheap if it handles 150kw
4. the charger..probably not too expensive.
5. electric AC, but this may be in use in some GM cars already, same with electric power steering.
6. electro-hydraulic brakes, and the associated extensive testing on these critical parts.

All these items are the ones that will lower the cost of Gen II and III of the Volt.. GM will be hesitant in qualifying other cheaper batteries due to the length of time testing requires.. at least 4 years in between battery changes. Having a battery life of 10-15 years is critical for the resale value of any BEV, unless battery leasing is widely adopted.

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Herm Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:15 am

“As cars age they are driven less and usually stay closer to home, so it’s quite possible that a twenty mile EV range would suffice for a ten or fifteen year Volt which served as the “local” car.”

Thats a very good point DonC, but as long as the battery retains the ability to buffer the genset and provide some acceleration then it has utility.. in other words a 15 year Volt many have 0 EV range and still work quite well with high efficiency.

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DonC Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:18 am

To your point, I think that Lutz said he miscalculated when talking about a $30K Volt because he didn’t realize that GM would need so many specialized parts for the remainder of the car. He thought that they’d be able to use standard parts. This would be your FUD factor, and your estimate of its size seems just about right, though perhaps just a tad low.

As you get more volume the cost of those parts should go down. If you add those savings to the lowered battery prices you might be able to take out $10K by Gen II. But even if you could get to a point where you could start with a $18K Volt sans battery — say Gen III — it would still have the additional cost of the battery and electronics. It’s very hard to compete on initial price with a $500 gas tank!

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-2 Tim Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:20 am

He’s not factoring in REAL inflation. The Fed has DOUBLED the money supply in the last year alone. Most of that has been sold abroad or given as reserves to banks (both foreign & domestic) but what happens in the next 2-3 years as those $Dollars come home to rooste?

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jeff j Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:21 am

vladg , I tend to agree with your view , does anybody know that state of recycling Li-ion technology , not just using a 10 yr old half dead battery to power grid apps , but reclaiming the battery ie. breaking the battery down and reusing the compounds to form a new Li-ion battery ? I can see a used 15kwh Li-ion battery being worth a pretty penny in the not to distant future .

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+1 RVD Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:21 am

Extra $10k it is not FUD – it is early adopters tax by GM

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+1 Larry Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:22 am

Good post, full of information. I would have been interested in at least a rough estimate of the additional cost of components to make a battery pack: Water cooling, Charge Balancing, Voltage/Temp Monitoring, Crash-resistant Enclosure??
All these extra components could easily add 50% to the cost of a battery pack –> pushing the total back to $1K/kWh.

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Ash Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:32 am

I would like to ask these people if there is a moore’s law on how the capacity / volume and cost / capacity is changing.

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Schmeltz Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:33 am

Unfortunately, a lot of what Mr. Patil said was over my head technically. I believe the happy take-home from the article is he feels confident in the price for the batteries to come down to 50% or even 25% of what it is currently in the next few years. That reason alone is cause to celebrate.

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+1 Herm Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:37 am

there are no exotic rare metals in these cells (unlike some batteries) thus there has not been a market in recycling them.. but I’m sure every manufacturer will have one in place soon for green halo reasons. Even a worn out pack could have lethal levels of power left in it so that is a consideration also. These cells are extremely environmentally benign, unlike lead acid and alkaline cells.

With increased demand even the cost of lithium metal will drop, and its not expensive now. I would guess these lithium cells are mostly made out of plastic..

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Dave G Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:41 am

Sounds like he got in trouble for being too specific on his last interview here:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/02/profile-li-ion.html#more

That’s where he said the cost of the pack was around $1000 per available kwH, and that the total kwH to available kwH ratio is around 2:1, so that would put the pack cost at $500 per total kwH.

In this interview, her repeats the total kwH to available kwH ratio is around 2:1:
Secondly, if you’re not using all of the capacity, just the combination of those two factors will effectively cut the denominator in half in terms of usable capacity at the end of life “”

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Dave G Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:56 am

He also repeats that the cost of the battery pack will be ¼ to ½ of what it is now in the next 5-10 years:
“I fully expect over the next 5 to 10 years for the cost to get better by anywhere from a factor of 2 to 4 in terms of dollars per kwh as compared to where we are now.“

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+2 CDAVIS Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:04 am

______________________________________________________
Excellent Post Lyle… Thanks!

I hope you soon do future follow up posts w/ Mr. Patil.

The Electric Car Revolution is here. The rate at which battery technology advances will be the primary determinant of how swiftly the Revolution displaces traditional gas ICE cars.
______________________________________________________

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+1 Carcus1 Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:07 am

Herm,

You (and several others) seem to be saying the $350/kwh number from Patil is vague, undefined, and irrelevant.

If this is your viewpoint, I very much disagree.

He is surely talking about the same cell chemistry that is to be used in the volt (automotive) pack. He is surely talking about the same kind of battery life that we should expect from an automotive application.

His “first” and “second” addendums have to do with battery life and usable capacity, which root back to the 25% degradation at year 10 statement (sounds a little optimistic to me, but ok). So “first” and “second” are basically non-issues here.

His “third” is of importance, but, in my calculations, I’ve already accounted for this “stuff”. This “stuff” being the BMS and cooling, and any special packaging. Done correctly, I don’t feel that this “other stuff” will add greatly to the cost of the BEV. And, in fact, you can price most of it out on line through distributors already.

If some manufacturers (like GM) want to make this waaaay more complicated than it needs to be, then they are going to add maintenance, weight, and cost to the vehicle architecture. That’s their problem. That’s not a problem for properly designed lightweight BEV’s

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+4 Dave G Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:10 am

There will be some inflation in the future. How else can we get out of this housing bubble?

If you look at any market bubble in the past, you’ll notice that it took as long for the bubble to deflate as it did to inflate.

If you look over the last 100 years, adjusting for inflation, you will see that housing prices have been fairly constant relative to inflation until the late ’90s, and then rose dramatically until around 2005. So it will probably take until 2012 or so for the housing bubble to fully deflate to the levels of the late 90’s (adjusting for inflation).

So if you happened to buy a house between 2000 and 2005, you will probably end up with negative equity, which will make it hard to sell your house. This encourages people to default on their loans.

The only real solution to this is for inflation to kick in and artificially raise the price of everything, which will work around the negative equity issue.

So expect some modest inflation numbers over the next several years…

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Herm Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:15 am

I think it is a matter of mass production.. consumer lithium batteries are made in great quantities, not so for specialized large format auto batteries.. but that will change.

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Gary Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:16 am

I would think that even after 10 years, the battery would still be useful in an EREV like the Volt since only 50% of the battery’s capacity is being used at the beginning of life.

At 10 years, the car’s computer can be programmed to use, let’s say, 80% of the battery’s capacity to get the same 40 miles.

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Carcus1 Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:25 am

Other than the large format thundersky batteries, can you give me a link to ANY lithium battery (including small format/”consumer”) that I can purchase for $350/kwh?

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Anthony Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:27 am

Lets say the Volt battery cost $8000. We’ll also assume that a new 8 usable kWh battery in 2020 would cost half that (regardless of its actual size). So if you can sell the Volt battery, which has 12kWh total left available, for $3,000 in 2020 (todays dollars of course), that means the net battery cost is only $5,000.

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+1 Herm Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:29 am

Its amazing how that February interview is the same as what he told Lyle in this interview.. the man is consistent.

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+1 Loboc Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:33 am

Lyle, I don’t see how you do it. Ya just steady type 24 hours each day ?

This is still the only site I visit *every* day that is not business related. I get some great chuckles usually.

Cheerleaders driving Volts at Texas Motor Speedway on July 4th FTW!

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Dwayne Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:33 am

I suppect that additional cost savings not mentioned may be more significant. ie: Li Air batteries or Li nano silicon batteries, both of these look to provide ten times the energy density of the current batteries. Yes, they will likely cost more but then you only need 1/10 as many. The folks working on these are for real and I expect great things.

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CaptJackSparrow Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:35 am

You can look at the cell price all you want but in full reality it’s the batt package that counts. Sure the cells are not expensive BUT the BMS is the better half of the batt pack. You need to factor that in everytime you look at cost for a batt pack. One without the other just won’t do.

For Moore’s law that a big no. Doubling in capacity every 2 years or so has not happened yet. Butt EEStor can prove me wrong.

There is also very very little Peukert effect on LiMn or LiFePO4.

Since we’re on the subject of after life useability. If my battery gets out of warranty and there’s still 75% life left on it, why the hell is it out of warranty?
Dan P brought up a good point on how the batt packs warranty gets “Hit” negatively as mileage is accumulated. Does the mileage accumulated in genset mode negatively hit the batt pack? Seems rather wrong to me.

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-1 CaptJackSparrow Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:38 am

I’m gonna take a guess here…
I bet you when GM says they have battery experts, they are talking about this guys team and not GM folks.

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CaptJackSparrow Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:39 am

See post 11.

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CaptJackSparrow Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:43 am

Herm, the cells they (GM) use are the most common type, a “Pouch” style. They’re more common than the large prizmatic cells DIY’rs use.

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CaptJackSparrow Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:48 am

“Extra $10k it is not FUD – it is early adopters tax by GM”

Isn’t that called E.A.T.?

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

OK, gotto go get me some more cream for my coffee Kahlua

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+1 CaptJackSparrow Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:52 am

It’s also a BLAST resistant enclosure and just that has to add to the price.

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CaptJackSparrow Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:54 am

You are correct and they probably have no reason to deviate cost of the cells till their contract is close to ending within that time frame.
LiMn cells are not very common and LG will probably milk this price for as long as it can.

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+2 CaptJackSparrow Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:57 am

That’s because there are too many “Uncontrolled” variables to the cost. The packageing, BMS, cooling and a few others need to be factored in. You can’t just look at the price os a cell. It the whole package that counts. I betcha anything if you add up the BMS, case, cooling and pumps for the cooling as well as the system interface to the onboard computer it will be half of the cost of the batt pack.

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CaptJackSparrow Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:59 am

Same here. I tried the “Other” site but it’s dead. Somebody needs to take a difibulator thingy to it.

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Carcus1 Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 11:05 am

Cells vs. BMS . . .better half
————-

Hey Capt,

While I agree on the BMS being of equal importance, I don’t see it being equal in price.

For instance:

If a Leaf’s cells cost $350/kwh on the 23 kwh pack, then that’s $8,050 for the cells.

I could see the BMS being $1,500 . . $2,000, maybe even $2,500 . . but not $8,050.

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CorvetteGuy Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 11:14 am

I read that EEStor got their patent.
Why would anyone get a patent for a hoax?
Does a patent prove that the technology exists?
If it is a hoax, wouldn’t the patent itself prove it is a hoax?
And if so, why would a company open themselves up for criminal actions by getting the patent in the first place?

I think Wilbur and Orville were laughed at too until they succeeded.

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CaptJackSparrow Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 11:16 am

Yeah, you’re right. I probably should’ve included the cooloing & heating and the Blast proof casing as well as the sys interface to the onboard computer.
I’m pretty sure the BMS is close to at least $2500.00 of proprietaryiness. Even a good third party BMS for DIY’rs cost around $2000.00. Look up eLithion, I consider their base singleboard BMS to be top notch. TS has one too for about a grand or more and some peeps in the US resell it for 2grand. Sup wit dat?

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CaptJackSparrow Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 11:27 am

Here’s their most recent patent…
http://www.pat2pdf.org/patents/pat7595109.pdf

It’s a “Continuation” of the previous. I think it’s one of those things where if the first was approved the continuation will most likely be approved but proof that putting them all together and works has yet to be proven.

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CaptJackSparrow Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 11:31 am

lol…..
I just noticed that he is holding one in his hands in the picture.

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Carcus1 Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 11:52 am

I’ve looked at elithioin. They’ve got a massive ” volume compensation” fee.

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CaptJackSparrow Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 12:09 pm

Jungle motors has an OK one. It has an LCD monitor of your cells and sh|t like that. I think this will be the one I’ll use on my build next year.
http://shop.junglemotors.com/category.sc;jsessionid=6EA19E9554370ED575A979A47610E0CF.qscstrfrnt02?categoryId=4

Here’s Thundersky’s: http://www.thunder-sky.com/products_en.asp?fid=95&fid2=96

I’m going to drive down to Jungle motors in May to take a look at their product and since i’ll be there, i’ll probably buy my Warp11 from them so I don’t have to pay shiping.

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tom Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 12:10 pm

So to summarize what we learned today.

- Until these cars start getting mass produced, we’ll have to pay like a $10k premium to cover the cost of unique automotive parts. So to compete with the Leaf who Nissan has already committed to large volumes, competiters are going to have to step up and produce or be driven out of the game.

- The Residual value of these batteries creates a new paradigm for cars. If you buy them you better drive them. You would be stupid to have a beater EV sitting in your driveway if the battery even at 50-75% of it’s original usefullness is still worth more than the rest of the car.

- Leasing of the Batteries is going to really make sense because not only does it keep you from having to prepay your fuelcosts when you buy a car, it keeps you from having to worry about what to do with a valuable part in a beater car. Think 5 years down the road where a 30 KWH battery might only cost $12,000, but 10 years after that it might still be worth $6,000.

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Carcus1 Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 12:11 pm

On the cooling/heating/housing.

Both the imiev and the Leaf are air cooled I believe. We’ve seen cutaway videos and photos on both. It just doesn’t look complicated/costly as far as the cooling and housing structure goes (to me) on the lightweight BEV’s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrNmplhx7ag&annotation_id=annotation_982657&feature=iv

(1:05 into the vid)

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omnimoeish Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 12:14 pm

So he pretty much restates what we already know, that batteries are $350/kWh but $1,000/usable kWh. This is amazing since a decent lead acid 12V car battery holds about 1 kWh and can be had for less than 1/10th that price RETAIL. I have a hard time imagining why GM doesn’t just make an 8 kWh battery pack using lead acid batteries so that they don’t have to burden customers with the extra cost. They could be selling $25,000 Volts that wouldn’t have the liability factor of a $15,000 parts and labor battery replacement.

Anyway, when he says that the price should come down by a factor of 4 (1/4th the cost of today’s batteries). I wonder if he’s referring to $/kWh or $/usable kWh. A subtle yet important difference, because if they can give the batteries the same longevity with 100% usability, they have effectively halved the cost of the batteries right there. Then if they could reduce the $/kWh by half, then the $/usable kWh is down to 1/4th right there. I can easily see $/usable kWh coming down by a factor of 4 in the next 10 years, easy. I would be shocked if it didn’t come down even more than that now that there are dozens of universities and multibillion dollar corporations around the world scrambling to make better and cheaper automotive grade batteries.

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CaptJackSparrow Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 12:25 pm

Here’s the deal. GM wants a sh|tload of buffer in the pack. If GM just let the packs drain to at the deepest 65% DOD then all they need is a 12.3KWh pack. These cells can handle typical specs of a 70% DOD @ 3000 cycles and 80% DOD @ 2000 cycles. That’s just a swag because those are specs for LiFEPo4 and we don’t know what the LiMn cells DOD really is.
In reality, the genset will always maintain well above 70% DOD by design and a person will almost never reach 70% DOD, thus “Short cycling” the batt pack of which is not counted as a full discharge.

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Carcus1 Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 12:31 pm

“So he pretty much restates what we already know, that batteries are $350/kWh but $1,000/usable kWh.”
___________

No, that is not what he said, and it’s not what we know.

$1,000/usable kwh is only if you figure it the GM way — where they are going to utilize only 1/2 of the battery AND pack in complicated liquid cooling AND undoubtedly a very expensive BMS (something that is going to have to be more complicated/expensive due to EREV design)

Using your $1,000/ usable kwh figure then we could assume the Leaf is going to cost $18,400 just for the battery. I think you are going to be quite surprised when the Leaf’s pricing is announced.

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jeffhre Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 12:33 pm

“I think Wilbur and Orville were laughed at too until they succeeded.”

The larger point is, they did succeed. Will EESTOR succeed…no clue?

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MuddyRoverRob Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 12:48 pm

Herm,

I do see your point but think that those depleted batteries will be used with residential solar/wind systems to allow these to provide reliable power.

I’ll take a couple.

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MarkinWI Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 12:50 pm

Deviate? Delineate? Devulge? ARRRGH. Anyway, he also made a pretty big point about the cost advantages of leasing the battery. If we take the $40K presumed Volt price, add in a $7500 tax credit, and then knock $5K off the price if you agree to lease the battery instead of buying it, the Volt looks a whole lot more affordable. By the end of the lease (7 years, ten years) the cost of the batteries will also have dropped, making replacement batteries a decent option for the consumer. Yeah, I know, the car will be older then, but if the car dies before the new battery, then you could still salvage and re-sell it.

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+1 jeffhre Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 12:54 pm

Unless there is a major hiccup, IMO no one in their right mind will swap out old batteries to get essentially the same performance from new batteries.

For example, if the software in your new batteries uses about 50% of capacity for an average AER of 40 miles and the software of your ten year old batteries will use 80+ of capacity for a 33 mile AER, would you say you will definitely pay $6000, labor + materials + tax, to get a new battery.

If battery prices fall to this level and you get a $1000 back for your ten Y/O battery making your cost $5000, for perhaps 7 miles added to your average AER, is that worth it?

$5000 to add 7mi AER in a ten year old car? I believe battery performance levels would have to go up radically to warrant this kind of expense. Something like the battery is near total failure, the car is in great shape the new AER will be 70 miles and a free firmware update to make the new battery capacity usable…how often will the circumstances come together like that for a ten year old car?

In context, during the past ten years Prius owners virtually never replaced batteries, unless there was a catastrophic failure – and those are much less expensive batteries.

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+1 V=IR Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 12:59 pm

No doubt a waste of a good name–they should have called it “occasionalVoltpromotionalvideo.com”. Maybe they’ll take the paddles to it when it gets closer to launch time. (CLEAR!!)

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CaptJackSparrow Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 1:18 pm

Looks like the Leaf is really going to push hard to get charging infrastructure.

http://blogs.edmunds.com/greencaradvisor/2009/10/etec-signs-998-million-doe-contract-provides-scope-of-work-launches-website.html#

Quote:
In a statement, eTec said the final scope of work will include the deployment of 10,950 Level 2 (220-volt) chargers, 260 Level 3 (440-volt) fast-chargers and 4,700 Nissan LEAF zero-emissions electric vehicles in five states: Arizona, California, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington.

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DonC Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 1:26 pm

Those are all good points. If you don’t need to warranty the range at EOL you don’t need the extra 25% of the battery, and if you use 2/3rds rather than 1/2 you need fewer cells. That should save you a few hundred dollars per usable kWh. However, the electronics and cooling will still be needed, unless like Mini and Tesla you’re comfortable telling people that when it gets hot they’ll need to park the car until the pack cools. Time will tell but I don’t think the pricing will be that surprising for those who’ve followed EVs.

My guess is the bigger savings will be in having the custom parts be made in larger volume, brought to you in part by the $1.5B loan from the DOE.

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tom Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 1:28 pm

Nissan said they will be producing 150,000 leafs a year in 2012 in Tennessee. Is that their projection for the US or would some of those be shipped elsewhere?

Don’t think they could be that confident of selling a single model at that volume if the battery cost $18,000. Even if they leased the battery for 5 years at $200 month the residual value of the battery would have to be $7,000.

I would expect something more like the battery costing $14,000 (at those volumes) and a 5 year lease of $150 month and and then Nissan will take back the battery for Recycling or Utility usage or whatever.

Another Very interesting concept about Leasing the battery is this scenario.
You buy a new car in 2012 with a 5 year lease battery. In 2017 you lease a new battery for 5 years. In 2019 you trade in your 2012 car for a 2019 model but they take the same battery you had leased in 2017 and put it in the 2019 model?

Just a thought if within a few years manufacturers standardize batteries so that various sizes could be transferrable from car to car.

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jeffhre Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 1:35 pm

What is the weight of an 8kwh lead acid battery and controller? The size?

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Herm Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 1:35 pm

Capt, prismatic and pouch are the same thing.. then you have the cylindrical cells like what tesla uses and other odd shapes such as rectangular.

I’m not that crazy about pouch cells but everyone loves them.

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steel Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 1:42 pm

One very important note

The 7,500 dollar tax credit was for the -purchase- of autos with a certain battery capacity.

I have not seen a clarification where leasing a battery would still qualify for the tax credit.

Does leasing a Diesel or Hybrid entitle one to the tax credit? I think the manufacturer can claim the credit and lower the lease price… (maybe)

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+2 melee Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 1:42 pm

Lots of people get lots of patents for really stupid things. Given the current state of USPTO review of patent applications, and the standards applied (even if they were well reviewed), getting a patent requires no more than a few pages of type, a couple drawings, and a couple hundred bucks. It is quite common to see patents for products that don’t, won’t, or even can’t exist. Even worse, most patents are so broad and/or vague that they in no way would allow you reproduce the item or technology described.

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David K (CT) Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 1:44 pm

Capt.

“Does the mileage accumulated in genset mode negatively hit the batt pack? Seems rather wrong to me.”

—————————————————————————————-

You have a point…I never thought of it those terms.

That really put a marketing crunch on the wholeEREV selling point.

After all, who you want to take their Volt across country and back (say all Genset mode), only to take a serious hit on the battery warranty?

Now that makes we want to never drive in Genset mode. Good thing I’ll charging both at home and at work (35 miles one-way commute).

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Geronimo Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 1:59 pm

If the Volt battery pack costs $8000 now, and the price will be 1/4 that in 5 years ($2000), plus there is a market for used auto batteries from renewable energy utilities (that can use those 70% capacity li-ion batteries in a stationery load balancing role);
and all those low-energy special purpose auto parts (windshield wipers, radio, air-conditioning) that Bob Lutz said was the reason the Volt is not just a Cruze with an $8000 battery dropped into it, come down in price as economies of scale kick in,
and gasoline prices rise to reflect the declining oil production as the recession fades away,

then the 2015 $23K Volt could sell 400,000 units, worldwide.

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-2 old man Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 2:00 pm

I have no better idea now3 regarding the cost of the battery than I did prior to reading the poewt. AT LEAST A BIT MOR SPECIFIC.

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Jaime Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 2:05 pm

Other big Leaf news here:

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/ariel-schwartz/sustainability/nissan-proves-existence-big-market-cheap-electric-cars

This claims the car will cost $20k. Whoa.

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Herm Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 2:06 pm

“The Website is designed to provide general information about The EV Project and it provides information about how to purchase a Nissan LEAF and how to apply for a free charger at a home or work.”

Free, that got my attention.

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Herm Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 2:08 pm

You could also just lease the battery in a monthly fashion.. when you trade in your car just stop the battery lease.

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tom Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 2:21 pm

The Charging infrastructure is a plus, as will be the improvements in the batteries over the years. But the main thing is to get the price down so people can start buying the cars in huge numbers in 2012.

Whether an EREV or a BEV with 100 mile range, if the cost for a car is 20,000 and the battery lease is equal to or less than the price of gas, then they won’t be able to build the cars fast enough.

GM better get going with the Volt and start planning on large numbers by 2012 or they might as well save us all a lot of grief right now and go out of business.

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tom Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 2:25 pm

In other words for 2010/2011 the $40,000 price tag is fine, but they better be planning on 2012 ramp up to large volumes and get the price down to $30,000 or $20,000 plus a battery lease.

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stas peterson Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 2:43 pm

The raw cost of all the cells for a VOLT is 16 x $350.00 or $5600. No matter how hard you look at the packaging and cooling of a cell pack, it can’t cost as much as $2000.00 or more, probably around $1000.00 tops.

You can buy a Prius for $24,000 and that includes all the components of a VOLT less the cost of a large battery. It also includes profit; but the cost of development has been written off by now. Many say that MITI (Japanese Government) paid for that development costs and Toyota never had to do so. In many ways the Prius is more complex than the electric drivetrain of a VOLT. Apply a profit margin to the cells and pack ($5800 + $2000) x 1.33 = $10,100.00, to add to a Prius price, and you should get the price of a VOLT retail with a full profit. That is $34,000 dollars but there is one cost not resolved .

The cost for the VOLT program development is not included. This cost includes engineering, styling, research and development, testing, debugging etc. Typically new cars can absorb $900 million to 1 $Billion dollars. for a new car of any type. OTOH, Model revisions can be done for only a few hundred millions of dollars, like the Prius Gen III. Or what GM will spend for Gen II and Gen III VOLTs.

Let us assume that the GM expects that 100,000 Gen I Volts will be produced, and must carry the cost of development. Then $10**9 /10**5 cars= $10**4 per car to cover development cost . So the Volt cost is around $44,000.00 per car with normal profit. Anything less is running at a loss.

If GM decides to write off the development costs for the VOLT over all three Generations then the additional cost might be twice $200 million, but the volume might climb to 650,000 Volts conservatively, over the various generations. $1.4x 10**9/6.5x 10**5 = 2.15 x 10**3 or $2150. or less. That is considerably less than $10,000 per car and a price of $44,000. The price would be less than $34,000. with full profit. It would be less by the reduced cost of battery cells, that is difficult to predict. If the cell cost is cut to 1/4 than $350 x .25= 87.50/Kwh. $87.50 x 16 = $1400 versus $5800. Or (1400 + 1000) x 1.33 =3192 versus $10,100 to add to the price of a Prius,assumin gth apck cost only drops by half. But this includes all R&D and development.

The eventual cost addition to achieve triple digit mileage, in the low two hundreds, versus around 50 mpg, will be about $3200 per car at full profit levels. If/when Prius goes PHEV, to achieve triple digit mileage, in the low one hundreds, that price difference will disappear as Prius adds a large battery.

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Herm Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 2:44 pm

” This is amazing since a decent lead acid 12V car battery holds about 1 kWh and can be had for less than 1/10th that price RETAIL. ”

Yeah but the lead acid is very heavy, and has a life of about 1000 cycles (usually 300 cycles) if you treat them very carefully with no more than a 50% discharges.. so for that 8kwh of usable power you would need 16kwh of actual batteries. You could do a lead acid EV, the most practical ones have been based on light pickup trucks.. they can handle the weight.

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CaptJackSparrow Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 2:47 pm

You know, I had no idea there were 3 tiers of charging….lol
If the Leaf pans out to be afoordable, I may not have to do a DIY conversion and just “pick a leaf”.
Although the SWAG of $150/month for the batt pack seems steep. I don’t use that much gas in one month for commuting in my super duper 96 Saturn SL2.

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CaptJackSparrow Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 3:01 pm

I agree with your numbers.
You triggerd a thought now though.

“Let us assume that the GM expects that 100,000 Gen I Volts will be produced, and must carry the cost of development. Then $10**9 /10**5 cars= $10**4 per car to cover development cost . So the Volt cost is around $44,000.00 per car with normal profit. Anything less is running at a loss.”

That sounds correct for Gen 1. But remember Gen 1 had all the R&D written off in the BK. If not somebody needs to be shot.
If it’s true what you say of the continuing R&D for next gen and that the next gen needs to cover the cost of new Gen R&D, then by that rule, it’s safe to say that no matter how low the batt cells get, Gen II will cost more than Gen I.

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stas peterson Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 3:03 pm

I inadvertently submitted this before corrections, and since AJAX is next to useless as it jumps about, I submit the corrected post as follows:

The raw cost of all the cells for a VOLT is 16 x $350.00 or $5600. No matter how hard you look at the packaging and cooling of a cell pack, it can’t cost as much as $2000.00 or more, probably around $1000.00 tops.

You can buy a Prius for $24,000 and that includes all the components of a VOLT less the cost of a large battery. It also includes profit; but the cost of development has been written off by now. Many say that MITI (Japanese Government) paid for that development costs and Toyota never had to do so. In many ways the Prius is more complex than the electric drivetrain of a VOLT. Apply a profit margin to the cells and pack ($5800 + $2000) x 1.33 = $10,100.00, to add to a Prius price, and you should get the price of a VOLT retail with a full profit. That is $34,000 dollars but there is one cost not resolved .

The cost for the VOLT program development is not included. This cost includes engineering, styling, research and development, testing, debugging etc. Typically new cars can absorb $900 million to 1 $Billion dollars. for a new car of any type. OTOH, Model revisions can be done for only a few hundred millions of dollars, like the Prius Gen III. Or what GM will spend for Gen II and Gen III VOLTs.

Let us assume that the GM expects that 100,000 Gen I Volts will be produced, and must carry the cost of development. Then $10**9 /10**5 cars = $10**4 per car to cover development cost. So the Volt cost is around $44,000.00 per car with normal profit. Anything less is running at a loss.

If GM decides to write off the development costs for the VOLT over all three Generations then the additional cost might be twice $200 million, but the volume might climb to 650,000 Volts conservatively, over the various generations. $1.4x 10**9/6.5x 10**5 = 2.15 x 10**3 or $2150. or less. That is considerably less than $10,000 per car and a price of $44,000. The price would be the Prius price plus $%2150 and the reduced battery cost, with full profit. It would be less by the reduced cost of battery cells, that is difficult to predict. If the cell cost is cut to 1/4 than $350 x .25= 87.50/KWh. $87.50 x 16 = $1400 versus $5800. Or (1400 + 1000) x 1.33 =3192 versus $10,100 to add to the price of a Prius,assuming that the pack cost only drops by half. But this includes all R&D and development.

The eventual cost addition to achieve triple digit mileage, in the low two hundreds, versus around 50 mpg, will be about $3200 + 2150 = 5350 per car at full profit levels. If/when Prius goes PHEV, to achieve triple digit mileage, in the low one hundreds, that price difference will disappear as Prius adds a large battery. The Gen I VOLT could have an MSRP of ($24,000. + 3200. + 10,100) or $37,300.

A Gen II & Gen III VOLT could have an MSRP of ($24,000 + 3200. + 2150) or $29,350. and still be fully profitable too. Since few pay MSRP, the actual transaction cost might be around $27,500.

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CaptJackSparrow Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 3:03 pm

Is boat acnhor a weight value?

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Herm Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 3:03 pm

I cant.. but note the replacement cost of a Tesla pack is $36k.

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Herm Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 3:17 pm

The man must have taken some courses in lawyer talk.. my eyes glaze over very quickly.

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Herm Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 3:18 pm

what about EEScam?

I want to believe..

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Herm Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 3:25 pm

I like that video, notice how a bit of black trim gets rid of the Catfish II look

A big battery pack runs cooler by not being stressed as much as a smaller battery.. perhaps that is how they got rid of them liquid cooling..but there may be some coolant lines that we dont see.

I doubt the Renault PBP car has a liquid cooled battery.

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CaptJackSparrow Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 3:26 pm

“The 7,500 dollar tax credit was for the -purchase- of autos with a certain battery capacity.

I have not seen a clarification where leasing a battery would still qualify for the tax credit.”

Hmm…
That’s a really good question.

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Herm Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 3:27 pm

“After all, who you want to take their Volt across country and back (say all Genset mode), only to take a serious hit on the battery warranty?”

But the battery is still working even on that long range trip, it is buffering the generator.

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Carcus1 Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 3:36 pm

From another source:
——–
No price has been announced for the Leaf, but Stevens [Nissan North America Spokesman] said it would be comparable to a leading economy compact car. Asked if $20,000 would at least be in the ballpark, he said, “I can’t give you numbers, but it’s probably in the range of what you just cited. It won’t be less than that.”
———

Nissan Estimates Leaf Price Around $20,000; Reservations Coming
http://industry.bnet.com/auto/10002546/nissan-estimates-leaf-price-around-20000-reservations-coming/

/I’d interpret that to mean $20,000 to $25,000 (and probably with a $150/mo lease on the battery??)

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Dave G Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 3:39 pm

Yep

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Carcus1 Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 3:53 pm

//Just keep your catfish in a bra.

Ok, found it. Nissan batteries are air cooled.

“Nissan’s lithium-ion battery packs have stacked modules made from layers of laminated material. Cooling air circulates between them, eliminating the need for water cooling. Prototype packs have been tested to 62,000 miles.”

Automotive Design and Production
http://www.autofieldguide.com/articles/020903.html

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CaptJackSparrow Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 3:55 pm

“But the battery is still working even on that long range trip, it is buffering the generator.”

But to what extent? We all know the SOC will never go below 70% of the buffered value and the genset will not let it go below unless it’s called upon in hard accell, say passing a freight truck. Somebody calculated that it only takes 22KW to keep a cruising freeway speed of 65mph, or was it 70, can’t remember.
So in the genset mode cruising at 65 or whatever for 20 miles the batt pack will never get drained. If it doesn’t get touched, should the 20 miles be counted against the batt pack?
This is all speculation but if GM can’t prove the batt pack is always being drained for “Drive” purposes in genset mode, it’s not fair to count the genset miles against the batt pack’s warranty.

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Anthony Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 3:56 pm

Battery capacity isn’t the only issue – the one that comes up in my mind is the battery’s ability to generate the power needed to drive, can it still output 70kW when needed? If the battery can no longer off the driver a suitable experience (0-60 in 13-15s) then its time for a new battery.

And maybe that limit isn’t 10 years, maybe its 15. We don’t know yet, but I’m sure we’ll find out…

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CaptJackSparrow Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 4:06 pm

Thanks for the link.
I like the iPhone app that allows you to fire up the AC jst before you get to the car. Someone brought that up for the Volt before.
But I don’t have an iPhone

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Carcus1 Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 4:30 pm

I could go on about the iphone for a while. My original (2g) iphone is getting a little “long in the bluetooth” now. I’ve been eyeballing the 3gs’ssss quite abit. I think they’re just scratching the surface on all the possibilities with the iphone.

Here’s another link with still shots of the Leaf battery housing. That 3rd shot confuses me a bit, as it doesn’t look like there’s room for that extra casing in the Leaf’s cutaway view of the battery enclosure. I also think it could cause extra heat build up unless they are somehow pressure feeding cooling air into that close tolerance plastic box.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=18&start=0&sid=908a150ebeb233d3c01a5a133fbf071e

/also wonder if they’re using some sort of cowl flap to control the amount of cooling air for varying temperatures.

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SteveK9 Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 4:36 pm

Patent situation is not great, but most of what you wrote here is wrong.

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SteveK9 Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 4:38 pm

It’s a good point, but he did mention it in the other interview months ago.

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Reality Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 5:13 pm

Add in the replacement warranty battery

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Herm Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 5:48 pm

I agree too, plus there will be a lot of 150 mile BEV running around also… we thank you early adopters and our S. Korean overlords for making this possible.

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Vincent Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 5:58 pm

Quote from Mr. Toyoda

Akio Toyoda, the head of Toyota Motor Corp, called the current dollar-yen rate “very tough” on Friday, saying weak U.S. currency made it difficult to return to profit on an unconsolidated level. Always blaming America first, eh?

Not about batteries…but very interesting.

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Dan Petit Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 6:46 pm

I really enjoy the technical precision and accuracy that Mr. Patil brings out for us when he interviews. Separating out what the costs are all about really helps to eliminate misconceptions and excessive “forward-looking statements” that other sources sometimes editorialize. His “steady-state” focus is always energizing too.

I like to plan for the future on careful statements like the ones that Mr. Patil provides for us. He is a true example of what I always hope to see in Executive level leadership. There is absolutely no surprise why he leads CPI, and, that he instills an excellent confidence level for future buyers of Voltec wherein his technology is utilized.

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Ted in Fort Myers Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 6:56 pm

Or just recycle the lithium and make a new pack.
Take Care,

TED

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omnimoeish Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 7:20 pm

Probably not as much as you think. It all depends on what reserve SOC buffers are needed. Remember that when you buy a lead acid battery for your car, it has the cells, but a lot of that weight and volume is in the battery pack. I wonder if there was a purpose built EV grade lead acid battery how much it would weigh. But since we can’t know for sure.

http://www.batteryweb.com/sonnenschein-detail.cfm?Model=DF8D&tbl=ger

Here’s a really nice lead acid battery that apparently retails for $500. These batteries are obviously not commoditized since they are so heavy duty and therefore cost at least twice as much as it would otherwise, but GM could probably make them in house for half that or less, but let’s just figure the cost and weight if GM just decided to buy 5 of these off the shelf and throw them in a Volt.

It would cost $2,500 and would need no thermoregulation. 1/4 the cost of the LG Chem cell based battery packs.

It would weigh 770 pounds, about the weight of a person more than the current pack.

Since each of these contains 2.4kWh, all 5 would have 12 kWh, you could still use 9 kWh and get 40 miles AER. It would measure 8ft long x 1ft wide, about the same as the LG Chem pack.

Yeah, you would probably have to replace them after 5 years, but shoot, the savings is tremendous!

Without knowing what a purpose built lead acid battery would cost, weigh and measure, it’s not a definite winner, but it just would be interesting though, you know?

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+1 GM Volt Fan Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 7:31 pm

I want to get me a GM electric car with NO internal combustion range extender engine and 300+ miles of range in 2015 or so. Here’s a podcast from the people in the newly formed IBM consortium that they are calling the “Battery 500 Project”. They are focusing on “lithium-air battery” research. Plenty of big brains and big bucks are going into it I hear. Very good news indeed.

http://asmarterplanet.com/blog/2009/08/next-generation-electric-energy-storage.html

The Battery 500 Project is a good name. Maybe it’ll become a famous project like the “Manhattan Project” or the “Apollo Mission”. I’d rather see the government and private industry get together and have a successful project like this one than build a moon base or go to Mars. We need to attain ENERGY SECURITY right here on planet Earth. It’s just a bigger priority for us Earthlings these days.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/02/ibm-kicks-off-battery-500-project-to-boost-ev-range-500-miles-or/

Hopefully, they’ll create a combination of a lithium-air battery and an ultracapacitor. That way you can get it all. The 300-500 range from the lithium-air battery with plenty of power to go 0-60 mph in 7 seconds or less from the ultracapacitor. A true no-compromise electric vehicle that’ll do everything a car like the Corvette can do.

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omnimoeish Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 8:03 pm

It better be less than $25,000. The car is just a $10,000 Nissan Versa with no engine components or transmission (~$2,000 cost) and just a simple electric motor. I don’t think the electric motor costs $17,000. The battery is not included with this price. Nissan is making a NICE fatty profit on these puppies even at $20,000.

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Carcus1 Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 8:29 pm

Nowwwwww you’re starting to come around.. . . .

(Too bad GM can’t seem to figure it out).

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+4 EVNow Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 8:56 pm

You are missing the whole peak oil problem. As soon as the market rebounds, high oil prices will kick in as the demand rises. Anything above $90 a barrel will send US hurtling towards another recession. Then the demand relaxes bringing the oil prices down again.

This cycle is likely to continue until we get off the fossil fuels …

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+4 Dave G Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:32 pm

Right.

The $700 billion/year that America spends on foreign oil – we simply can’t sustain that. So we will be forced to use less oil, sooner or later.

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+1 jake Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:35 pm

Tesla of course uses mass produced commodity cells, so they have the volume on their side. However, I don’t see a DIYer wanting to deal with wiring together that many small cells and having to do the balancing.

$36k/53kWh = $680/kWh. Of course some of this is the extra cost for safety and also because it is replacement cost for the customer.

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jake Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:23 pm

I think genset miles will count warranty-wise no matter what. Look at hybrids. The battery isn’t always used but they still count miles like normal.

If they wanted to do a new way of calculating warranties, then they can count charge cycles instead, but I think they want to keep the default miles that people are used to.

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jake Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:42 pm

The Tesla battery pack is already liquid cooled. What overheats is the PEM and the motor (both of which is air cooled). With a large enough battery pack (like in a BEV), I don’t think you will run into cooling problems even using air cooling because of the large surface area for cooling and with a large pack you spread out the current through parallel wired cells, while for things like the PEM and the motor, the current is concentrated and there is less area to cool.

The MINI-E battery pack is air cooled if I am not mistaken. I’m not sure if there was ever a case of the battery pack overheating. In any case both use small round commodity cells so the cooling requirements may be different that the Leaf, which uses flat cells and a different chemistry.

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jake Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:56 pm

You still need thermoregulation. Lead acids tend to do very bad in cold weather. Also the other problem is what you pointed out, that you would have to replace them after 5 years (maybe less depending on how much buffer you have) when 10-15 years is what consumers expect a car to last. If you have the same amount of buffer that the LG Chem pack has (16kWh pack in total) it would be twice the size and more than twice the weight and that isn’t acceptable.

Also lead is extremely toxic and even given the successful recycling programs lead batteries have, it is still not ideal to have to use lead to make our batteries.

Also if GM didn’t care about battery life, they would have use much less of a buffer (for example use 80% of capacity instead of 50%) and saved a bunch of money on battery cost.

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-1 Geronimo Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 11:25 pm

… by 2014 to 2019.

He said 5 to 10 years.

A factor of 2 by 2014, then 4 by 2019 ?
Or, a factor of ‘2 to 4′ by ‘2014 to 2019′ ?

Basically, he has almost no clue how much economies of scale will kick in, or what breakthroughs that will save the most money in production might be found soon… but that both factors could be huge.

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Geronimo Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 11:39 pm

They were laughed at sometimes after they succeeded, too:
In May 1925, Orville and the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution publicly disagree over whether Samuel Langley’s Aerodrome or the Wrights’ airplane was the first capable of flight.

Ha ha !
—–

The Wright Brothers were issued patent No. 821,393, for a flying machine, on May 22, 1906.

They had already succeeded at demonstrating this flying machine on December 17, 1903.
(they applied for the patent on March 23, 1903, before they had a working example).

Of course, there were no computers back then, so paperwork went much slower…

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Darius Says:
October 3rd, 2009 at 1:13 am

$500 tank, $1500 gearbox and transmission, bigger engine $1000.

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Darius Says:
October 3rd, 2009 at 1:20 am

If pack itself so pricy why not make cells replacable. In case you can easely replace worned cells the battery pack could last for ever.

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GXT Says:
October 3rd, 2009 at 1:25 am

Except the $7500 rebate is probably gone by 2015 so even with you take the most optimistic price reduction the Volt will still cost about the same in 5 years as it will at introduction.

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Neutron Flux Says:
October 3rd, 2009 at 1:27 am

One thing you are missing is the UAW contract not to strike will end before then so they will be expecting big pay & benefit increases which will drive the cost per vehicle significantly higher and the $7,500.00 rebate will no longer be available so you can put that 2015 price closer to 30K, assuming battery prices drop to 2K as you predict, but that too I believe is a long shot, more like 10-15 years I would think from lab at MIT & CIT to mass production. But with inflation & gas prices being around $4.00 / gallon then or more it will still be a good buy.

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Neutron Flux Says:
October 3rd, 2009 at 1:39 am

You cannot always back spin the meter! In California the attempt to raise the % of power that was allowed to back meter, even after being scaled back, failed to pass so California atleast in the North will soon lose the ability for new solar users to spin their meters backwards. This means it will not be cost effective to buy any more capacity than the lowest use day of the year as anything extra is either lost or given to the grid without compensation. I saw this comming & got mine in So. Cal. while I could & the rebates were at the top this year. Although only a 5KW system, it should keep me well within baseline even with an electric car.

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CaptJackSparrow Says:
October 3rd, 2009 at 2:00 am

I understood the hybrids (Prius/Fusion) battery is always used but then recharged at brake regen or when the car is idle or speed delivers more electrical power than needed via the MG2 motor/generator. That’s how it gets consistent achievable mpg’s.
Or, I could be wrong as hell.

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carcus1 Says:
October 3rd, 2009 at 3:10 am

I would be surprised if you cannot spin your meter backward (net metering) inside of the monthly billing period. Many places do not allow “monthly rollover”. Without monthly rollover it very well may not be cost effective to install a system that provides any more capacity than your lowest monthly use.
—–
In the U.S.A., as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, under Sec. 1251, all public electric utilities are now required to make available upon request net metering to their customers.[2]:
‘‘(11) NET METERING.—Each electric utility shall make available upon request net metering service to any electric consumer that the electric utility serves. For purposes of this paragraph, the term ‘net metering service’ means service to an electric consumer under which electric energy generated by that electric consumer from an eligible on-site generating facility and delivered to the local distribution facilities may be used to offset electric energy provided by the electric utility to the electric consumer during the applicable billing period.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_metering

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Herm Says:
October 3rd, 2009 at 8:57 am

I think the modules are air cooled, but the individual cells in the modules are just cooled by heat transmission from contact with each other and with the metal case of the module.. or not. Cooling is not rocket science, they do what they need to do to get it done.. dont forget Japan is fairly hot in the summer.

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Herm Says:
October 3rd, 2009 at 9:26 am

it would be cool if each cell talked to each other and the main computer with bluetooth.. and had built-in voltage/temperature/capacity monitoring and self discharge capacity.. someone should make a chip and sell it to the battery manufacturers.

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Herm Says:
October 3rd, 2009 at 10:13 am

I am interested by the Panasonic Module approach of just wiring up 20 cells in parallel, and then connecting those in series of 7 for a total pack voltage of 25V and 52Ah capacity.. each of those modules would only have 7 submodules to balance.. fairly standard chips are available to do that. Each of those modules could be self contained, it would simplify wiring quite a bit.

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koz Says:
October 3rd, 2009 at 10:24 am

Expect there to be kwh in and/or kwh out metering for the pack.

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koz Says:
October 3rd, 2009 at 10:26 am

The Volt is little like the Prius in this regard.

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koz Says:
October 3rd, 2009 at 10:54 am

Jake, your not alone in saying 10-15 years is what consumers expect cars to last these days. Most people say this and in general I believe it is true. It troubles me that this is automatically extended to battery packs for plug-in EVs. This seems like an unnecessary obstical for them to have overcome. In reality, public sentiment may force this but practically it’s $/kwh lifetime that really matter.

The public accepts replacing: brake pads, rotors, filters, belts, gas, fluids, tires, AC copressors, etc just fine. They also stomach rare engine, transmission, cooling system, and other big ticket repair work.

For me if 3 yr batteries mean lower lifetime vehicle costs, I’m all for them.

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Noel Park Says:
October 3rd, 2009 at 11:48 am

Yeah, my heart bleeds for poor Mr. Toyoda. I guess we had better get busy and toughen up the dollar so that Toyota can make some money, huh?

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Noel Park Says:
October 3rd, 2009 at 11:50 am

Two words: “Range Anxiety”. It’s gonna be a tough sell. Good luck Carlos.

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Sean Says:
October 3rd, 2009 at 1:05 pm

If your interested about green cars and maybe trucks as well maybe you should go to a college that teaches about automobiles and if you have ideas about cars and trucks of the future and the experience to create green vehicles you should check if that college teaches about the basics of automobiles and before you sign up for a class at that college your interested in ask the people of that college if there interested about green automobiles of the future if not keep moving on till you find a college that has a program like this. Here are a few states that are probably interested in the green automobile industry. California, Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, Washington state, District Of Columbia, and maybe New york? I hope these places will help. Note) I am not an expert on green automobiles but I do wish to anybody who has the desire and interest of making electric, plug-in hybrids, fuel cells etc. I wish these automobiles will appear in the future and succeed once and for all may the green cars rein supreme!

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jeffhre Says:
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:34 pm

“It would weigh 770 pounds, about the weight of a person more than the current pack.”

That is true, if the person weighs 440 pounds. Of course that does not include a structural enclosure, controllers and thermal system (cooling in the deserts and heat at below -30 degrees).

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tsport100 Says:
October 4th, 2009 at 4:23 am

Good to see he’s quoting the REAL price!

The open market price for 18650 Li-ion cells has been around $350 kWh for years! The cost of the Tesla pack is around $377 kWh.

All just goes to prove that the Carnegie Mellon study published 6 months ago claiming $1000 kWh for the Volt pack was simply BS as they made no attempt to break down their cost, explain how that number was calculated or even give a source for that price!

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Finally, a Volt battery price… sort of… | Sequence Omega Says:
October 4th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
mlloyd Says:
October 5th, 2009 at 2:12 pm

“These cells are extremely environmentally benign, unlike lead acid and alkaline cells.

With increased demand even the cost of lithium metal will drop, and its not expensive now. I would guess these lithium cells are mostly made out of plastic..”

Using environmentally benign and plastic in the same post is hysterical. Ask all the fishes in the world’s oceans and waterways how benign plastic is! You earth-firsters kill me with your perferred power choice’s vices somehow being less onerous than old school power choices. There is no environmentally benign… and as has been proven what was once thought benign is not.

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Dan Frederiksen Says:
October 7th, 2009 at 5:19 am

he should have asked what the mass percentage of lithium in batteries is. I hear there is only something like 1% of lithium in a battery so lithium is not a cost critical component at current prices. it should be possible to get below 100$/kWh and maybe well below.
and all it takes is for one factory to do it first. they’re all balanced greedy right now and they’re playing chicken with the fate of the world..

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Davide Andrea Says:
October 12th, 2009 at 4:10 pm

> They’ve got a massive ” volume compensation” fee.

Well, handholding each new client is really resource intensive. For business reasons, it was either having that fee, or making it available exclusively to pre-qualified, large manufacturers. We chose the former, so no one would be excluded from a Lithiumate BMS.

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