The article mentions lower cost of raw materials, but the other factor driving this is more efficient batteries. CATL is starting mass production of 500 Wh/kg batteries, about twice as dense as the ones used today, which reduces the need for rare materials as well.
This is exactly what we would expect to happen. There was a major supply crunch for batteries which incentivized people to build more battery factories which caused a projected crunch in the mining sector, but the mining sector saw the writing on the wall and started ramping production too.
Now the battery costs are falling and in a few years we will probably see an oversupply situation which will be good times for anybody who uses batteries. I'm a bit hopeful about decarbonization efforts for the latter half of the decade. I think battery prices will drop enough to make grid storage viable in more places and further allow the deployment of wind and solar generation. As this article mentions EVs will see a major price drop in their most expensive component.
Then of course a bunch of the manufacturers will go out of business because the prices dropped too low and then the market will consolidate into a couple of companies and prices will creep upward again as they fail to compete with each other. But that's a problem for the future.
For the next 10 years, I don't think we'll see an oversupply of batteries. There's simply too many ready to deploy applications for them that will accelerate as cost comes down.
Grid storage is the major one. As price starts to decline you are going to see power providers soak up any excess battery supply.
Battery recycling is also very good. Most all car batteries are recycled. Once you have enough lithium or whatever dug up, it'll just get cheaper to recycle for the most part.
EV battery recycling is WIP right now. At the moment it's still cheaper to dig up new lithium and cobalt, but I guess a lot of that is there just aren't enough old batteries available to recycle to cover demand right now.
There are companies that take old EV batteries and break then down. The steel and plastic is recycled. The valuable metals end up in one big lump right now, but as I understand they are storing them for future use as that part is still being commercially developed and they expect it to be valuable.
If we take a look at lead acid batteries, the majority of the lead that is used in the manufacturing of new batteries comes from old batteries that are recycled.
* LFPs are really starting to take off which pull a lot of pressure off higher capacity NMC batteries.
* Sodium ion batteries are just starting to hit the market which further reduce demands on Lithium.
The ramp up on alternative chemistries is playing a fairly good role here and sodium ion will likely push prices down even more aggressively.
Further, I expect that battery recycling will really start to be a major contributor to lower costs in the next 10 years or so. So I'd expect even lower prices as the battery market starts approaching saturation.
Oh everywhere really. It's something I've been interested in for quiet a while. A battery related article was something I'd click on every time it came up on slashdot.
Limiting factor [1] can be really good at breaking things down and covering current battery tech (they are fairly bullish on tesla). But I also get bits and pieces from google news feeds, renewable focused social media, and diving into anti-renewable social media :D. I don't mind reading into a critical piece to challenge my preconceived notions.
It does help, though, to simply know who the big players are and watch what they are actually manufacturing (and then read up on that tech). I mostly ignore the "this battery is 8 billion times cheaper than lithium ion!" news stories because they are sensationalist. An article about CATL building a solid state battery line and now I want to know what it is, how it works, and what the cons are.
CATL is probably the most interesting manufacturer to watch if you want to know where the cutting edge is. (Similar to TSMC being cutting edge when it comes to chip manufacturing).
Very much so. I suggest watching the following video to see where we are at. [1]
> Won't it become less so as new batteries become cheaper?
Recycling will be the key to making batteries even cheaper. Getting already refined iron, nickel, and other chemicals will be far cheaper than trying to mine these materials fresh.
Very similar to how pretty much all lead acid batteries are recycled. Mining new lead is a lot more expensive than reusing old lead.
Recycling isn't always economical (see paper and plastic) but in the case of batteries, it absolutely is. The biggest problem battery recycle have is there's simply not enough batteries to recycles. Demand far outstrips supply at the moment.
> In addition, we will also launch the automotive-grade version of condensed batteries, which are expected to be put into mass production within this year.
That's not even the important stuff. CATL has 150 wh/kg sodium ion (aka a 300 mile car or better) that is 1/3 or less what cobalt chemistries cost, and LFP at 200+wh/kg (aka a 400 mile car) at about 1/2 what cobalt chemistries cost.
But the ultra dense stuff will also help as well, especially with heterogenous cell architectures and the like.
