Study: Big Battery Factories “Won’t Do Much To Cut Cost”

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cove3

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http://insideevs.com/study-big-battery-factories-wont-much-cut-cost/

“Carnegie Mellon University researchers have found that the cost savings associated with manufacturing a high volume of batteries for electric vehicles may be nearly exhausted. Mass production lowers cost, say the researchers — but only up to a point.”

This point is level of 200-300 MWh of annual production, which is equivalent to just 8,000+ to 12,500 Nissan LEAFs a year! This would mean that all major manufacturers like Nissan/NEC, LG Chem, Panasonic exceeded this mark long ago

Our results raise questions about whether increasing vehicle sales is the best way to continue to spend limited resources — as opposed to, say, more research on battery technology. For example, we estimate that finding a way to make batteries with thicker electrodes could lower the cost of long-range electric vehicle batteries by as much as 8 percent, while increasing production beyond current levels may only cut costs by less than 3 percent.”
 
Interesting article. It seems like the Tesla Giga Factory is what this targets with its skepticism. But cars to date are building at two times the limit they site. The scale of the Tesla project is about two magnitudes larger. I wonder how well the limit will really hold.

The 8% better through R&D vs 3% better through scale may also miss a correlation: the larger the scale, the more incentive there is to invest in research. Will a larger scale battery operation attract larger scale investment to improve the product? That is certainly the case with things like drug development, where low-volume diseases (like Ebola had been viewed) don't get much R&D, but larger scale ones do (like Ebola now that it has international attention).

Gary
 
I think the policy point is that "ramping to mass production" is not sufficient to make BEVs competitive with ICE / Hybrid vehicles on an UNSUBSIDIZED basis. Expected saving would need to be in the $10-15K/car range for that.
 
The Tesla battery factory will save 30% in costs off the top, with no change in chemistry.

Think about the scale here, they already need to ship these battery cells from Japan.
Plus the raw materials also need to be shipped to Japan first to make the cells.
The cells will be slight larger, requiring less of them for the total pack, making better use of the container materials and reducing packaging costs.
Tesla intends to source relatively locally to the factory to obtain this top level reduction (30%).

I am betting with my pocket book and will be glad to put my $ down on the Tesla 3.
 
<<<The Tesla battery factory will save 30% in costs off the top, with no change in chemistry.>>

Do you have any links for this?

Ron
 
cove3 said:
<<<The Tesla battery factory will save 30% in costs off the top, with no change in chemistry.>>

Do you have any links for this?

Ron


It's been said by Elon Musk/Tesla motors multiple times, I'm sure you can find the quote via google or look through transcripts of earnings calls (I listen to all of them). No breakthrough needed to make 35K Model 3.
 
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