Pike Research Sizes Up Lithium Battery Market

You are surprised EV are expensive? The reason for that can be summed up in one word, Li-on. Li-on did not become the battery of choice for EV's because of some inherent technical or performance advantage. There being embraced precisely *because* they are so expensive. High price inhibits consumer acceptance of EV's, issues like so-called range anxiety and reliability issues the oil-auto cartel constantly trot out are basically red herrings. Li-on has many of the attributes the oil-cartel requires to ensure EV constantly remain something that’s perpetually "coming next year". You will see little effort being made to reduce the cost of Li-on batteries or correct its flaws. To do so would bring EV's into direct competition with the ICE. Something I don’t feel they are about to allow to permit, even with PO looming. For a current example of this, see the Nissan leafs "battery lease" for a good example of auto-companies attempt to artifically inflate the operational cost of a (li-on) EV.

Is
Li-on inherently Expensive-Check
Resource Constrained, or Potentially so?-Check
Cant be recycled-Only disposed off-Check
Limited Shelf Life-Check
Require Further (ok endless) "Research" -Check
Anemic Range-Check*

Look what Li-on has done for Tesla. Extremely expensive, niche car, whose battery pack is rated for 50,000miles before replacement, Actually there is a time limit on Li-on, those batteries will degrade to uselessness over time regardless of miles driven. In the past the oil-cartel more or less simply buried or suppressed EV's through various means, but with EVs finally starting to make some headway in the publics mind, the auto-oil companies are resorting to the simplest method of all, cost. If you want to slow the acceptance of Pure EV's in general, you could not ask for a better battery than Li-on.

I think the comment on hybrids misses the mark completely. People were buying or not buying them because they were hybrids, they were buying them, at least in the US, because they offered something that simply wasn’t available at any price-a truly fuel-efficient car. Hybrids of course are a waste of time and resources, and fuel-efficient ICEs is possible w/o resorting to the over-engineered hybrid-but that another issue.

*While Li-on is technically capable of providing decent range ie-150-200 mile range, it cannot do so AFFORDABLY. Nor can Li-on eliminate its downsides, which are numerous. A good example of how anemic range and high cost meet, is the iMeV. $50,000 for less than 100 miles real word is hardly impressive, yet this seem to be typical for most proposed EVs. While Li-on boosters constantly proclaim the various Li-on chemistries that address its numerous flaws, not one of these alt. Li-on's are actually powering any mass-produced vehicles of ANY kind.

DC,
You're spreading unsubstantiated (and incorrect) information. I'm not sure what your end goal is or whether you are just another shill/sympathizer for the auto industry trying to discredit a competitor.

Your points:
Li-on inherently Expensive-Check <-WRONG. Lithium is cheap and a great battery technology. That's why it is used in 100% of cellphones and laptop computers. Sorry, the archaic ICE automobile industry doesn't own that industry so they can't prevent good stuff from getting into production to substantiate their self-serving lies.
Resource Constrained, or Potentially so?-Check <-WRONG. Lithium is a very common salt
Cant be recycled-Only disposed off-Check <-WRONG. Lithium is so cheap it actually isn't cost effective to recycle the lithium itself, only the packaging (see: http://www.teslamotors.com/blog4/?p=66 )
Limited Shelf Life-Check - TRUE! today's cheap laptop batteries only last about 5 years (~80% or original capacity) Tesla babies the battery by temperature control so it is likely to last longer but we don't know how long yet. Who knows what will be replacing them then? Besides, ICE cars often require significant powertrain work after 5 - 10 years of hard driving too, including water pumps, fuel pumps, alternators, transmissions, and clutches.
Require Further (ok endless) "Research" -Check <-WRONG. Tesla proves Li-ion could be made to work today for supercars with no battery R&D at all. It can only get better and cheaper since there is now a proven market for automobiles to target.
Anemic Range-Check* -DEPENDS on what you consider anemic range. Hundreds of miles isn't anemic for most purposes. Li-ion has the highest specific-energy (Wh/kg) available today of any affordable battery as proved by the cellphone and computer industry. I'll grant that fast charging or ICE range extenders will be needed for EVs to travel long-distance as conveniently as ICE can today.

You say "Hybrids of course are a waste of time and resources, and fuel-efficient ICEs is possible w/o resorting to the over-engineered hybrid-but that another issue."
This kind of sounds like you don't like the electric drivetrain at all. If that is so, why do you even bother diss'ing a Li-ion battery solution when you clearly don't like the NiMH batteries used in today's hybrids either. Just admit that you're afraid of electric motors and leave it at that.
You claim that a "fuel efficient ICE is possible" but what happens when the cost of ICE fuel goes ballistic? How fuel efficient must it be to be affordable? Can you propose an affordable personal transportation solution for our grandkids' generation to use?
Maybe batteries that can be charged from nearly any energy source?

DC,

Diesel ICE are over-engineered as well, not to mention the complex exhaust system. Some exhaust system even require owner's maintenance. If you are familiar with Hybrid Synergy Drive, you'll see that it is very simple mechanically (including electric motors) and the hybrid system is maintenance free.

A smaller Diesel car may be able to match MPG of a mid-size hybrid on the highway but it will not come close in the city where most people live. The emission of the "clean enough" modern Diesel does not come close to full hybrids.

You can't dismiss the benefits of electrification.

DC,
I don't know where you are coming from. From your response to my harsh reply, I think I hit a few nerves and it sounds like you actually do want to make things better so let me clarify a few of the things I said:
You are right, Tesla's battery solution is expensive. It would be a whole lot better if they went out and bought Li-ion or NiMH batteries that were mass produced in large formats with all of the necessary cooling capabilities built in. Unfortunately, before Tesla (and after the killing of the '90's EVs), there were no EV's in production to enable a large format battery manufacturing industry. Creating an industry is a difficult thing to do. Creating affordable products is even more difficult. Something needs to get the industry going and something else needs to get it growing in order to get the costs down.
An example of this is the computer. IBM and a bunch of others got it going for a few niche, yet well funded markets. Once the power of the computer was known, others were able to create cheaper ways to do it and, when a killer application (probably the word processor and the spreadsheet) were discovered, that large amounts of people were willing to pay lots of money for, the market grew and prices were able to drop to an affordable level. This took over 30 years to mature to where the average consumer could afford a computer.
Tesla did the world a great service by using the supercar market to jump start a demand for large format batteries and prove to the world that EVs are superior to ICE (similar to how computers+word processors proved themselves to be superior to typewriters).
I wish I could convince you about the superiority of the electric drive train over the ICE but you seem to be quite set in your ways. I don't shill for either the oil or auto companies. I'm an EV advocate because I see how they can provide a sustainable means of transportation for future generations.
I would, however, like you to look at the Li-ion battery and ask yourself why every battery application in the world is moving to them from computers to cellphones to R/C airplanes and cars to military combat UAVs and radios. I've designed cellphones and looked into all of the battery solutions. Li-ion just is far superior to anything else in nearly every regard. I'm pretty sure there are benefits to other battery technologies, possibly even including old lead-acid (which only last about 8 years after hundreds of years of development) but Li-ion really is great today and still shows huge potential for the future.
The only cost problem I see is for large-format Li-ion batteries and that is only because they are not being mass produced. Tesla has reduced the cost of their batteries greatly since they started through automation and I'm sure we'll see more improvements over the next few years.

AP,
Sorry for the shot at the auto industry but they'll have to show me they've changed before my opinion will change. GM took my great car away from me and then lied to the public about my opinion about it. They sold the patent for the pretty-good (NiMH) battery technology to an oil company who squatted on it and restricted its use in vehicles. The rest of the automobile wasn't much better.
Clearly the crushing of the '90's EVs by the big 6 auto manufacturers was a move to remove them from sight in hopes that the EV issue would go away. No other explanation makes sense. The motivation for their doing so is certainly not so simple.
The ICE is archaic. It took over a century of massive, continuous improvement by some of the hardest working, brightest minds in the world to get the manufacturing costs, etc to where they are today. Despite that, in most measures, my 2nd generation EV will blow away any ICE powered car in its price range and many that cost 3 or 4 times as much. The ICE belongs in the museum, along with the horse, sail, and steam engine for all but a few niche applications unless we can find a new energy source to run it on. (disclaimer: I love horses, sailing, steam locomotives, and steam ships - even served on a steamship for a while)
It is definitely in the short-term interest of the incumbent auto (or any other) industry to stifle any new technologies for which they don't control the intellectual property while continuing to pay down all of the capital costs they've sunk in their legacy business. Managing change is a very difficult and dangerous thing for a company to do as they may kill their current business while trying to improve it (research Osborne computers).
You're right that it is naive to think anyone can squelch a new technology forever. Remember that Kodak sat on the digital camera technology because they owned the film industry until others end-ran them and they were force to change their business structure. Fortunately, they were smart enough to shift to printer paper so they didn't lose everything although they are not nearly as strong now as when they dominated the film industry.
Transportation giants Baldwin and Lima locomotive companies staunchly refused to change and went completely out of business. The president of Western Union was quoted as saying something to the affect that "nobody really wants to talk that much" as his multi-billion dollar company began its decline from telecommunications giant serving the wealthy to preying on the down-and-out and illegal aliens with limited alternatives.
Remember how long it took the US Navy to transition from Sail to Steam?
There is a workable solution with easy physics and cheaper energy than gasoline. That is the battery-electric vehicle. The only limitations are:
- Energy storage since you cannot carry as much energy in batteries today as you can in a gas tank.
- Cost: It is hard to compete with a product that has had over a century of cost reduction efforts put into it.
The efficiency of the electric drivetrain, however, offset the energy storage issue quite a bit. Probably enough for over 95% of vehicle use. Fast charging or ICE range extenders (perhaps with expensive yet sustainable fuel) can easily handle the remaining 5%.
The cost problem will take a sound business strategy.
I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories (unless I'm a conspirator :-) and support workable solutions. I've put a lot of my money and time behind workable solutions in hopes of seeing them succeed. I saw Tesla as having a potentially workable solution and history has shown that was correct. Despite a lot of pit-falls and politics, they jump-started the EV industry by starting at the high end. It will be interesting to see if and how EVs migrate toward affordability.
I agree that most inventors want to see their stuff used. Greedy business people want to make a lot of money. Inventors seldom own their inventions, businesses generally do because it takes money to invent something and put it into use. This is always an interesting dynamic as Tesla witnessed.
Fundamentally, you and I differ in the priority of our values. I don't value simply increasing efficiency as much as I do sustainable solutions. Increasing efficiency of something unsustainable just means you won't run out of it as soon or maybe your kids or grandkids will. Emotionally, increased efficiency is tempting but may not lead to anywhere useful. I place a lot more value on sustainable solutions and I don't see a sustainable solution that involves combustable fuel unless we find a way to reduce our planet's population by a huge amount.
I don't trash technologies but will dig for and share the details of them, whether good or bad, as they relate to sustainability. I do reserve the right to unmercifully trash people who lie in order to push their pet technology.

ex-EV1 driver, I doubt we'll ever agree. I think if we all ran more efficient forms of whatever technology we had (including ICE's), we probably wouldn't run out of petroleum for 100+ years. By that point, the higher cost of petroleum might naturally favor the EV's, despite their higher cost and lower range. That far out, though, it's just a guess. Let's just say I remember that in 1978, we were going to run out of petroleum by 1985, but by 1985, gasoline had dropped by half in price. "Sustainable" is a relative term. In the short term, everything is-in the long term, nothing is. What is sustainable depends on your timeframe.

Also, it didn't take 100 years for the ICE to overthrow the electric car. It was more like 10 years. Electric cars were first thought to be the best design, but the combination of range, quick starting, etc., etc., etc., quickly put ICE's out in the lead. This despite the fact that electricity was initially more widespread than gasoline (at first, you had to buy gasoline in 2-gallon cans at a hardware store).

Your comparison of computer speed to battery technology is also not a good one. Computer speed is limited by the speed of electric current (same as the speed of light)-the shorter the distance travelled, the less time each operation takes. Computer companies able to double speed repeatedly by continually miniaturizing the processors. However, battery designs start off much closer to their physical limit. Just like a gallon of gasoline only holds so much energy, a combination of lithium with other chemicals can only store so much. You can optimize it by minimizing the amount of wasted space, etc., but you'll never double it.

As I said, it doesn't matter to me technology what we use, as long as it works. If we drop everything that isn't "500-year sustainable" today, we would be needlessly throwing away equipment meant to run on today's fuels, and leaving perfectly good fuels sit while we pay more for something else. Should we decide not to invest in more nuclear power because it would run out in 500-1000 years anyway? Of course not!

To sum it up, this doesn't make me think the ICE is archaic, but an extremely robust, tried and true, effective, efficient, successful design. Everything I've heard to the contrary is pure emotion.

ex-EV1 driver, your numbers are about right, but the ratio was wrong. There is about a 65:1 difference in energy storage, which with the 4:1 efficiency ratio, still gives the gasoline powered ICE a 16:1 advantage in range per kilogram of energy storage. Considering that part of the energy goes into propelling the "energy storage medium," the advantage for the ICE is even greater. This is why it is, and will continue to be, so difficult to produce an EV that is competitive with ICE's, without heavy subsidies for EV's (which we can't afford) or heavy disincentives against ICE's (like moving part of the income tax to a fuel tax), even if batteries become really cheap.

For the record, the 4:1 efficiency ratio for the electric motor vs. the ICE is like comparing apples and oranges, because the electric motor uses "stored work" (from a battery) that was produced from heat at the power plant. At the plant, about 2/3 of the heat was thrown away, and 1/3 was sent as electricity down the wires. So all an electric motor has to do is convert the "pre-made work" stored in the battery, back into work, which should be 100% efficient.

While the ICE takes heat from fuel and "wastes" 3/4 of it, the electric motor "wastes" 2/3 of it at the powerplant.

Batteries and electric motors have been around longer than ICE's and still perform worse-doesn't that make them the archaic device?

Great discussion, however the vital point is that prices are always high at the start of a market for two reasons (i) the supply chain has not had time to ramp up and (ii) purchasing psychology - you can always cut a price but hard to raise. My study of Li Ion shows that 18650's were in the $10 each range a decade ago and are currently under $2 OEM. We can realistically project a 50% drop in price over the next 3 to 5 years as battery materials, the BIG cost, are dropping with competition and technical progress. There is a lot of lithium, almost anyplace there is or was a hot spring, all over the world. Tesla used commercial battery cells because (i) available in any quantity you want (ii) very mature manufacturing (iii) can live with individual batteries failing, replace at leisure, among other good reasons.