[HN Gopher] Lithium battery costs have fallen by 98% in three de...
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Lithium battery costs have fallen by 98% in three decades
Author : hhs
Score : 361 points
Date : 2021-04-03 16:03 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.economist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com)
| 1cvmask wrote:
| Electricity consumption varies from household to household.
| Reminds me of this piece:
|
| https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/GlobalWarming/story?id=29068...
|
| "Armed with Gore's utility bills for the last two years, the
| Tennessee Center for Policy Research charged Monday that the gas
| and electric bills for the former vice president's 20-room home
| and pool house devoured nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours in 2006,
| more than 20 times the national average of 10,656 kilowatt-
| hours."
| brtkdotse wrote:
| 10k kWh per year seems really low. Does that include heating?
| reportingsjr wrote:
| It does not, and the vast majority of people in the US have
| natural gas heating.
| BostonEnginerd wrote:
| We use about 8500kWh per year in the northeast US. This does
| not include space heating yet, but does include our Chevy
| Volt charging.
| wcarss wrote:
| It's about 27kWh/day, and according to the stats in the link
| fv6 provided elsewhere in this threadset, that's average for
| a northeast US house. Houses in the south tend to use more
| like 15-16k kWh/year, due to air conditioning mostly, leaving
| the 2015ish national average for single detached homes closer
| to 13k kWh.
|
| This post has been an interesting eye-opener for me. Somehow
| I've never really thought about the numbers deeply, but,
| having a 100-watt lightbulb on for 8 hours is almost 1kWh. My
| and my partners' computers + home server, at a mix of
| wattages and uses but mostly left on _a lot_ , are probably
| using 15-20kWh _daily_. That 's... a lot of power.
| ghaff wrote:
| Most computing devices are more efficient that they used to
| be, although there are more of them. I'm reminded of this
| because I keep my house pretty cool in the winter and used
| to be my office was relatively cozy even so because of all
| the heat being thrown off by big CRTs and tower systems
| under the desk. It's much less so today.
| read_if_gay_ wrote:
| 10k kWh per year roughly corresponds to consuming a constant
| 1kW/h which sounds about right, if not a bit high, if you
| exclude heating. But I don't think electric heating is common
| in most places.
| hannob wrote:
| The US 10k kWh average is extremely high.
|
| The EU average is 3.7k kWh.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Here in Norway the average is 16k kWh a year[1], or about
| 44kWh a day, but then most uses electricity for heating,
| hot water etc and it gets fairly cold during winter.
|
| [1]: https://forbrukerguiden.no/normalt-stromforbruk/
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| Is that really the accepted unit for measuring the power-
| consumption of a home? Can't we just use kilowatts?
| daliusd wrote:
| Our family uses about 5k kWh per year. That includes a lot of
| household appliances that run on electricity but heating is
| not electric.
| FpUser wrote:
| >" $140 per kilowatt hour"
|
| I wish I could buy at this price. Maybe for some large
| manufacturers. If one is shopping for eBike batteries privately
| for example the price is sky high comparatively.
| h2odragon wrote:
| I recall the first time someone showed me lithium batteries, in a
| radio control car that outperformed a real car. Even then, the
| price while high wasn't the biggest barrier to getting large
| quantities; you just couldn't _get_ as many as you wanted. Don 't
| think that has ever eased.
|
| I think that's why TSLA is such a hot stock, people _feel_ there
| 's much more market thats undeserved and TSLA seems to be the
| only folks gearing up to build batteries until everyone has all
| they want.
| ffggvv wrote:
| by that logic panasonic should be a 2 trillion dollar company
| vilvo wrote:
| Great progress. Still the lithium chemistry energy density is
| nowhere near what is needed for flight and heavy traffic. We are
| at 200-400Wh/kg and we need 2000Wh/kg.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/OiXyO
| hristov wrote:
| This is important to keep in mind when you read articles and/or
| studies about how electric cars or wind or solar power is
| impractical. A lot of the data these studies use is just
| obsolete.
|
| Say you have an opinion piece in a news paper that says that
| electric cars will always be expensive toys for the rich. It
| relies on a scientific paper published in a technical journal 2
| years ago. The scientific paper does not perform original
| research but relies on a study published 2 years ago, which study
| relies on official data reported by companies six months before
| publication.
|
| Perhaps nobody in this propagation chain meant to mislead. But in
| the end they are using old data that assumes that battery costs
| are five times what they are in reality and twenty times what
| they will be in the near future (for example) and draws all the
| wrong conclusions.
|
| Similar things are happening with articles and public comments
| about renewable energy. There are numerous arguments about how we
| will always need coal power or nuclear power, or natural gas and
| they all base it on old studies with obsolete high costs of
| batteries. These articles commit a further error by also
| neglecting the every decreasing costs of solar and wind power.
| These articles are even more egregious because while a car lasts
| only 10-15 years a power plant is supposed to last at least 30
| (for coal or gas) and up to 60 (for nuclear). Furthermore,
| nuclear plants take 5 to 10 years to even build. In those years
| the costs of batteries and renewables will only go down further.
|
| In the financial press there were many articles about how Tesla
| will never be profitable, how it is an extravagant way for
| shareholders to subsidize luxury car buyers, how it will always
| rely on government subsidies and will need more of them, etc.
| Well, guess what the federal tax credit expired and lo and behold
| tesla is profitable.
|
| They weren't necessarily lying. But they were using automotive
| industry assumptions, and the auto industry with their internal
| combustion engines is a mature industry with few opportunities
| for cost reductions. But as far as batteries and electric motors
| and power semiconductors go ... well we are just getting started
| on them and hopefully we will have many opportunities for cost
| reductions.
| markdown wrote:
| > a car lasts only 10-15 years
|
| Is this normal where you live (presumably the US)? I find that
| really wasteful. Cars last twice that in my country, and we
| have tropical, seaside (salt = rust) weather to deal with.
| mlindner wrote:
| There's a lot of variation in the US depending on where you
| live. In California the car can be so old the paint has all
| come off but there's hardly any rust on the car because the
| air is very dry, it doesn't rain much, temperature variation
| is low and salt isn't used on roads. On the other hand you
| can be places like Canada or the northern midwest where
| Temperature swings by 100F between summer and winter, salt is
| used heavily on roads to melt snow, rain is common during the
| warmer months, and humidity levels in the summer are high.
| This causes cars, especially those not in covered garages to
| quickly rust and not last more than 15 years or so before too
| many components and body frame have rusted away.
| Tagbert wrote:
| In the US, the average age of all cars is 12 years, so a
| 10-15 year lifespan is pessimistic.
| bdcravens wrote:
| 25% of cars are 16+ years, and the longevity of cars is
| increasing
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/28/25percent-of-cars-in-us-
| are-...
| sokoloff wrote:
| > while a car lasts only 10-15 years
|
| While it might be the case that today's EVs will not be
| economically longer-lived than 15 years, the overall _average_
| age of a car in the US is 12 years, and most of my cars have
| been bought with 10 or more years on them as it makes for very
| inexpensive motoring (no need for collision or comprehensive
| insurance, no financing interest, and nearly no depreciation).
|
| I bought my 2015 LEAF new and suspect it will not be
| economically viable in 2030 while our 2005 Honda CR-V is 16
| years old now, still going strong, and most likely will still
| be in service in 2030.
| wazoox wrote:
| The new Dacia Spring has a 27kWh battery and costs only
| 12kEUR. In the electric car market, the situation is evolving
| extremely rapidly.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > no need for collision or comprehensive insurance, no
| financing interest, and nearly no depreciation
|
| But you need to maintain it and have it inspected instead!
|
| And you're also paying with your safety - ten years is a very
| long time in safety technology these days!
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| Time will tell but I've got my fingers crossed that in 15
| years time any backstreet garage will exchange your battery
| on a car of that age for a cost proportionate to the fact
| that you could reasonably expect another 10 years of
| trouble free motoring. With luck with a 50% increase on its
| original capacity.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| They already do. A battery swap/refresh/replacement for a
| Leaf is 5-10kEUR over here, depending on how bad shape
| the original is and whether you want a larger battery in
| there.
|
| It's kinda sorta doable by yourself, but it's a HVDC
| circuit so you _really_ need to know what you're doing.
|
| Actual brand-name shops are slowly able to replace
| individual failed cell packs instead of just swapping the
| whole battery.
|
| The big problem is that batteries aren't really failing
| and because of that the manufacturers don't really have a
| process in place for replacements, each operation is a
| custom job.
| r00fus wrote:
| Surely you jest. What safety features on standard vehicles
| became indispensable in the past 10 years?
|
| Note: things like collision avoidance and adaptive cruise
| are still luxury features and the OG poster wouldn't have
| bought those anyway.
| brucehoult wrote:
| My 2008 Subaru Outback 2.5XT (JDM model) has camera-based
| adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning, lead
| vehicle start warning ("stop looking at your phone"), and
| pre-collision braking. Also AWD, 265 HP turbo engine. I
| bought it for NZ$10k (US$6000) in May last year, with
| 87000 km. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EnuwXA6VcAAH9MJ.jpg
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Collision avoidance, speed limiting, adaptive speed
| limiting, adaptive headlights, lane keeping, blind-spot
| warning, ISO-FIX anchors, far stronger pillars, reversing
| cameras, lane exit monitors, SOS buttons and GPS
| reporting, far more air bags, door-cyclist collision
| warnings, seat-belt pre-tensioning, some have pre-
| collision suspension raising, etc, etc, etc.
|
| I just went from a 2009 Land Rover to a 2020 Land Rover,
| so almost exactly 10 years, and one of the the main
| reasons I did it was safety features. They weren't
| standard on my model before and they are now. It's night
| and day.
| mattlondon wrote:
| Also things like eCall (1) that became mandatory a couple
| of years ago without much fanfare: Fully automatic
| call/report to emergency services in a serious accident.
|
| I think passive safety of modern cars has significantly
| improved too - they periodically up the ante on what it
| takes to get full scores in EuroNCAP for instance (2). A
| "top rating" car from 10 years ago would probably now be
| scarily-bad compared to the latest requirements that new
| models ace.
|
| 1 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECall
|
| 2 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_NCAP
| waiseristy wrote:
| Don't forget TPMS! Probably one of the best safety-to-
| dollar-spent advancements in the last *13 years
| mrfusion wrote:
| Interesting. What makes you say that?
| chrisseaton wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firestone_and_Ford_tire_con
| tro...
|
| "271 fatalities and over eight hundred injuries in the
| United States with more injuries and fatalities occurring
| internationally" and would have been detected by a TPMS
| which costs a few dollars.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Blowing out an underinflated tire at high speed is
| probably a reasonably common cause of accidents.
| mrfusion wrote:
| Does being under inflated increase the risk? I always
| figured it was debris or just worn out tires?
| sokoloff wrote:
| Underinflation adds to sidewall flexing which increases
| the heating and wear on the tire, which increases the
| risk. A few psi isn't the issue, but seriously under-
| inflated tires are a safety issue for traction and
| blowout risks.
| [deleted]
| sokoloff wrote:
| That was federally mandated in fall of 2007.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| How do you people leave out ESC - it saved my life at
| least once or twice and it's obvious how well they work.
|
| What leaves me even more fumbled is how easily RWD
| Tesla's spin out and crash with regen and snow. Take the
| gas pedal of and you're going off roading. With normal
| car you'd struggle to even trigger ESC, let alone loose
| it.
| sokoloff wrote:
| My 2005 Honda has ESC (Honda calls it VSA-Vehicle
| Stability Assist) so it's probably similar to ABS in
| these conversations: widely present and not a last
| 10-years' addition. I think Toyota had it on all
| passenger models since 2004.
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| I have heard horror stories about the
| mechanical/electrical reliability of Range Rovers.
|
| The number one complain has been the powertrain. I know
| the automatic transmission is the weak spot in most
| vehicles, but I have heard of complete failures before
| 100k.
|
| Could you give your evaluation of the vehicle?
| cbozeman wrote:
| There's an Australian expression, "If you want to go into
| the bush, take a Land Rover. If you want to get out of
| the bush, take a Land Cruiser."
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Your special forces still use Land Rovers on operations!
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Australian_SOTG_patrol
| _Oc...
| cbozeman wrote:
| Negative, Ghost Rider. American spec ops prefer, and
| often use, Toyota Land Cruisers and HILUXs, for the very
| reason behind the Australian proverb! :)
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Negative, Ghost Rider
|
| Australian, not American.
|
| And I've literally seen it for myself, and I just also
| linked a photo of them doing it!
| cbozeman wrote:
| > Your special forces still use Land Rovers on
| operations!
|
| I'm not Australian!
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Not a Range Rover, sorry, a Defender.
|
| I wouldn't own anything else to be honest. I've always
| driven one, and I also work professionally with a fleet
| of them and I don't have any problems at all. My last
| personal one never needed any work at all over ten years.
| Even if they were unreliable, if it's the kind of form
| factor you're after I don't think anything really
| challenges them on the market.
|
| I think they're also a uniquely egalitarian vehicle - if
| you see someone driving a Land Rover it could be a
| farmer, a teenager in their first car, a parent doing the
| school run, an Army unit on exercise, a professional
| footballer, literally the Queen, or anything in between.
| You can drive the same car to the rubbish dump and to
| Royal Ascot and it looks completely appropriate in both
| cases! I don't think there's any other vehicle even
| remotely like that.
| lumost wrote:
| Collision avoidance is now standard tech. Subaru has been
| making automatic breaking/adaptive cruise control a
| standard feature of all new model designs. Legacies MSRP
| at 22k, and the 18k impreza is due for a redesign in
| 2022. A quick google shows that the 2021 versa may be the
| cheapest car with automatic breaking at $16600 MSRP.
|
| https://www.subaru.com/engineering/safety.html
| https://www.nissanusa.com/shopping-tools/build-
| price?models=...
| brucehoult wrote:
| My 2008 Outback 2.5XT has Eyesight adaptive cruise
| control including automatic breaking! Cost me US$6k a
| year ago with 55000 miles. Thirteen years old!
| sokoloff wrote:
| Maintenance beyond consumables (brakes, wipers, and tires)
| costs less than the difference in excise tax ($25 tax per
| $1000 of imputed value every year). All cars are inspected
| annually here.
|
| At 4K miles per year (my average pre-COVID), if my risk is
| average, I'd expect to be in a fatal accident slightly less
| than once every 22K years. I'm OK without the latest driver
| aids at that low level of risk.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| 4k miles per year isn't really anything, no point in
| getting anything more than the bare minimum.
|
| According to most studies EVs are more eco-friendly after
| around 50-100k miles depending on each individual
| country's energy production profile.
|
| At 4k miles per year you'd need to drive a brand new EV
| for over 12 years to break even CO2 wise.
| oblio wrote:
| > I'm OK without the latest driver aids at that low level
| of risk.
|
| Driver aid, ok. But passive safety?
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| If you look at some people dedicated to testing EV's -
| Tesla's phantom braking has become huge driving factor
| away from their cars.
| ghaff wrote:
| I have a 10 year old vehicle. The current model has the
| basic advanced safety features (auto-braking, adaptive
| cruise control). But, no, I wouldn't get a new vehicle
| just to get those features. And this is coming from
| someone who does generally buy new cars.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I expect I'd get more passive safety improvement from
| buying a 5000# 2011 car/SUV than a 3500# 2021 car/SUV,
| but if I move my risk from once every 22K (or even 20K)
| years to once every 25K or 30K years, it's not clear
| that's meaningfully different.
|
| I'd probably be much better off to take less stress at
| work over car payments and/or lose 5 pounds on an all-
| risks basis.
| turtlebits wrote:
| The 2015 Leaf has the worst battery degradation of any EV.
| That's Nissan's fault.
|
| However, battery prices are going drop further. Your Leaf has
| a 24kWh pack. At the current $100/kwh price, thats $2400 for
| a completely new battery. In the future I'm sure you could
| get an even higher capacity replacement.
| dehrmann wrote:
| That _might_ have been an intentional choice if they knew
| either they 'd sell to suckers and leave them on the hook
| for the new battery, or have to subsidize a new battery in
| 5 years, knowing it would be cheaper, like writing a call
| on batteries.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| The battery had literally zero temperature management, no
| heating or cooling. They literally could've added a 12
| volt chassis fan to make it not suck so bad.
|
| Rapidgate was a thing, the battery heated up when
| driving, you stop to recharge -> battery heats up even
| more -> overheat -> limiters engage and you're charging
| at hand crank levels of power.
| sokoloff wrote:
| The LEAF has a battery heater. It does suck for having
| only passive cooling.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| The funny thing is their electric vans do have thermal
| battery management.
| vmception wrote:
| Is there a good way to quickly understand this for any topic?
|
| Like, take something you might not be interested in and just
| "don't get". Your conclusions will be very quick but based on
| the current state of things.
|
| The people that "do get it" might be crazy, or they might be
| seeing a longer trend that they've been following so long that
| they never articulated it, and aren't even capable of
| articulating it.
|
| How is one supposed to form opinions on new topics where the
| state rapidly changes?
| philipkglass wrote:
| There is no easy shortcut. There are some people who have
| kept up with academic research, commercial developments, and
| trend lines over enough time to filter out short term noise.
| Some of them blog or write long comments on HN. But unless
| you are one of those people yourself, you won't be able to
| tell which writers are trustworthy.
|
| You can rapidly filter a lot of noise out of energy news with
| knowledge of physics and chemistry from 100-level university
| courses (or equivalent) [1]. But most people never acquired
| this knowledge and a lot of those who _have_ only retained it
| long enough to pass tests in school. 10 years later they don
| 't remember the difference between power and energy or why
| some chemical reactions are exothermic and others
| endothermic.
|
| [1] This knowledge is actually helpful to filter news in
| general when it makes assertions about the physical world.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Yes, using obsolete data from when tech was bleeding edge in
| 1999 to imply things about cost going forward is misleading.
|
| On the other hand using improvement over the same timeline,
| drawing a line on a graph and saying "look how X Y is gonna be
| in Z years" is the same exact type of stupid but pointed in a
| different direction.
|
| In 1991 lithium was highly immature technology and would take
| about a decade to make it into fragile electronics. It took
| another decade to make it into power tools. Now it's viable in
| high end commuter vehicles. If it was easy to predict the
| future a decade out with any reliability we wouldn't be having
| this discussion.
| ip26 wrote:
| _drawing a line on a graph and saying "look how X Y is gonna
| be in Z years" is the same exact type of stupid_
|
| And yet we do it every ~18 months with semiconductors.
|
| Imperfect to be sure, but if you don't skate to where the
| puck is headed, you will miss opportunity.
| sir_bearington wrote:
| Except we don't. Where's my single-core 100GHz processor?
|
| Improvements still happen, but not always in the same way.
| If you implemented an application in 2003 assuming we'd
| have such a processor you'd be very disappointed. Counting
| on exponential improvements to continue is risky bet.
| dmoy wrote:
| > And yet we do it every ~18 months with semiconductors.
|
| So, this is about to stop. Very soon. Quantum tunneling,
| yield rates, etc are all starting to be cost prohibitive.
|
| <10nm stuff was already delayed. There's plans for 3nm.
| It's unclear yet whether 2nm will work.
|
| Even if hypothetically it does, there's a very real limit -
| an atom is only 10x smaller than 2nm.
| mlindner wrote:
| > So, this is about to stop. Very soon. Quantum
| tunneling, yield rates, etc are all starting to be cost
| prohibitive.
|
| People have been saying that for over 10 years though.
| "Very soon" keeps being punted off by another 5 years
| every 5 years.
| ben_w wrote:
| On the one hand, I remember people saying the same about
| nodes much larger than those we currently use.
|
| On the other, yes: continue current trends and single
| atom transistors become standard in 10-32 years.
| usrusr wrote:
| I think it boils down to we will hit a wall, but we don't
| know exactly when we'll hit it. (and how hard, chances
| are that higher-hanging-fruit refinements will make the
| transition to stagnancy so gradual that we may not notice
| at all)
|
| A jump from "all past predictions failed" to "and so will
| all future predictions" seems rather bold to me. In the
| end it's like a somewhat upended variation of the "x
| decades to practical fusion" thing where we all hope that
| the old joke that x might be a natural constant is
| eventually proven wrong.
| ghaff wrote:
| Well, the main direction of refinements at this point
| seem to be around composable/heterogeneous computing
| where we basically have a lot of hardware optimized for
| specific workloads and throw the complexity at the
| software people. i.e. now deal with GPUs, DPUs, FPGAs,
| xCPUs, etc. instead of (largely) just a standardized set
| of CPU instructions.
| ip26 wrote:
| Sure. But there's been questions about the viability of
| the next node for at least twenty years. If you played it
| safe and stuck with the current node, you'd have been
| wrong & at a process disadvantage 14 times out of 14.
|
| No improvement trend goes on forever. But why is _this_
| the moment lithium ion hits the wall? It's like trying to
| call the end of a bull market.
| cbozeman wrote:
| Not according to Jim Keller. He believes we still have
| plenty of room, and no offense to you, but I'll take his
| word before yours.
| clomond wrote:
| Except when you consider where each technology fits within
| its own S-curve of adoption (X axis over time, Y axis is % of
| the technology adopted by the market).
|
| When factoring in the shape of the exponential decreases in
| costs, and that penetration of most of these technologies is
| at or before the inflection point (between 5%-15% market
| penetration), it is more likely that the cost declines will
| ACCELERATE moving forward rather than slow down.
|
| Why has it felt that laptops and PCs haven't progressed as
| much in the 2010s as in the 1990s or 2000s? Because in 1995,
| there was not a computer on every desk in every home. But now
| not only is the market saturated with laptops and PCs, people
| are walking around with mini internet connected "super
| computers" everywhere they go.
| rini17 wrote:
| For example there isn't agreement where on the S-curve fits
| hydrogen as automotive fuel. Or if it has a future at all.
| Same with other alternative technologies. The S-curve is
| only a hindsight device.
| bsder wrote:
| > Why has it felt that laptops and PCs haven't progressed
| as much in the 2010s as in the 1990s or 2000s?
|
| Because computer development is driven by _network upload
| bandwidth_. And maximum network upload bandwidth has been
| stagnant for almost 15 years.
|
| And vast network upload bandwidth increases are quite
| technically possible--but has been politically damped
| rather than adoption curve damped.
| ben_w wrote:
| > Except when you consider where each technology fits
| within its own S-curve of adoption (X axis over time, Y
| axis is % of the technology adopted by the market).
|
| Unfortunately, even a very small amount of noise in the
| data makes is basically impossible to know where you are in
| an S-curve.
|
| Much safer to make predictions based on the far more
| limited good news that PV+battery is already cheaper than
| coal for electricity or ICE for cars.
|
| Hmm... question for anyone who knows: with current tech,
| how much would it cost to develop a significant PV-powered
| electrolysis-and-Sabatier-process plant in any of the big
| coastal deserts, for exporting methane?
| clomond wrote:
| > Unfortunately, even a very small amount of noise in the
| data makes is basically impossible to know where you are
| in an S-curve.
|
| While true, my point is that when combined with the fact
| that we are pre-inflection point, and the economics now
| stand on their own (renewables, Electric Vehcile TCO and
| various Energy Storage applications being already
| cheapest, competitive or very close too) it is not
| unreasonable when mapping out the 5-15 year future to bet
| on an acceleration of cost declines over a deceleration.
| Particularly because the actual driver of unit cost
| declines (Wrights Law/Moore's Law) is the doubling /
| magnitude of units manufactured and put through the
| system, for which with all the factories being ramped up
| and planned - point to the positive in my view on it.
|
| Regarding your PV-powered and electrolysis-Sabatier
| (electrofuel) methane, I think there are two important
| considerations. In order for methane (or other e-fuels
| like hydrogen or longer chain hydrocarbons) to be made
| economically, the capital cost of the equipment needs to
| be utilized as close to 100% of the time as possible. We
| already know that PV excess will be centered around the
| daytime peak (5-7 hours per day) meaning that there would
| also need to be plenty of excess wind to balance this out
| to get anywhere close to 100% utilization of the excess
| energy. Until the electricity grids get sufficiently
| saturated with renewables broadly, most e-fuel
| applications will continue to not be competitive,
| particularly as things like energy storage applications
| (possibly run off an e-fuel) are likely to be economical
| prior there being an opportunity for the export of excess
| e-fuels. That's more at the a end of the S-Curve as far
| as I can tell.
| simonh wrote:
| Build enough PV to generate 24 hours worth of power for
| the reactor in daylight hours, and store the excess in
| batteries to power the reactor overnight.
| nardi wrote:
| These are not the same kind of stupid. One makes the
| assumption that costs will always be the same, and the other
| makes the assumption that cost decreases are linear, or
| predictable. The former is much stupider.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Nope, it's the same thing: excess of confidence in
| predicting the future.
| LMYahooTFY wrote:
| The commenter was point out the nuance between the two,
| it's obviously about confidence in an assertion. You just
| re-reduced it to what was already obvious?
| wpietri wrote:
| They are exactly the same kind of error in that both assume
| stability over time. One assume prices are stable; the
| other assumes the rate of change is stable.
| AlchemistCamp wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| A first-order approximation leaves a lot to be desired, but
| it's better than a zeroth-order approximation.
| nolok wrote:
| These are the exact same kind of stupid: they assume
| everything data set will always be constant or linear.
| minitoar wrote:
| Are there many gains to be had on electric motors? I guess I
| sort of assumed those had seen quite a bit of optimization
| already.
| iknowstuff wrote:
| > The engineers of Tesla motor's shocked everyone when they
| abandoned the versatile induction motor in Model 3 cars. They
| used a totally different motor called IPM-SynRM. Let's
| understand why the Tesla engineers made this crucial design
| change.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esUb7Zy5Oio
| ninjinxo wrote:
| Hrmm, so the cost and performance is much the same, but it
| adds value by creating a new talking point for Tesla owners
| to harangue others with.
| callmeal wrote:
| >Hrmm, so the cost and performance is much the same, but
| it adds value by creating a new talking point for Tesla
| owners to harangue others with.
|
| I know that hating on Tesla is a thing, but don't forget
| the higher torque, better efficiency, lower heat
| generation in the stator windings. And the fact that this
| type of motor first showed up in the Prius and Tesla made
| a better version of it. Yeah they're getting away with
| saying they invented it Prius were touting their
| continuously variable transmission instead of thier
| motors.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| I'm as big of a Tesla fan as any, but I'm both
| continuously impressed with how ahead-of-its-time the
| Prius was and continuously disappointed how lack-luster
| Toyota has been in pure electric cars. Toyota had like a
| decade lead on everyone else and just.... sat on it. Only
| invested in hybrids and hydrogen (which was and is a dead
| end).
|
| Toyota could've gone all-in on pure electric cars (and
| better plug-in hybrids than they had at the time) a good
| decade ago but instead they continue to waste money on
| hydrogen.... Only now finally announcing pure-electric
| cars in the US:
| https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/10/22187113/toyota-
| electric-...
|
| It's really sad. It's really bad for the climate that
| they just sat on the Prius drivetrain, which is 95% of
| the way to a pure electric car, for over two decades (it
| was released in 1997... it's 2021 right now!).
|
| Literally, people have modded (i.e. added extra battery
| capacity) Priuses from 2003 to be pure electric even at
| highway speeds with the same motor and controller. They
| had everything sitting right there. It's incredibly
| frustrating.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Heat scavenging is probably biggest efficiency gain you can
| get. Tesla was relatively late to add heat pumps, but did
| innovate with octovalve (which has like 8 modes of heat
| distribution, one of which is storing something like 2kwh of
| heat in battery volume itself).
| fulafel wrote:
| They are so close to 100% efficiency that the possible gains
| are modest.
| aaronblohowiak wrote:
| what is the cost of the motor vs the cost of the input
| materials? what % of the cost of a vehicle is the cost of
| the electric motor? My understanding (however limited here)
| is that car-worthy motors are still priced at a bit of a
| premium to their input materials, but it doesnt really
| matter because overall they are still not that expensive
| compared to batteries.
| sbeller wrote:
| Look at it the other way round: they could reduce losses
| from 6% to 4%, which lead further savings in needing less
| cooling tech.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Yes. A big improvement over the last few decades is rare
| earth magnets, which have reduced the mass, increased the
| power and efficiency. (Rare earth magnets in car motors can
| be and are recycled, FWIW.)
|
| Additionally, the power electronics have improved a lot, too,
| and continue improving.
|
| As others have noted, Tesla went from their induction motors
| (which use no rare earths) to a somewhat more efficient
| combination of switched reluctance and brushless DC motor
| using some rare earth magnets.
|
| There are also various improvements to rare earth magnets.
| Magnetic energy density improves somewhat. Cooling schemes
| improve. Even alternatives to rare earth magnets (certain
| phases of iron or nickel, for instance) have been and are
| studied.
|
| I think improvements in cooling schemes is a big part of
| future improvements. As well as reduction in eddy current
| losses through better litz wire, maybe playing with the grain
| structure of the conductor, etc.
|
| Longer term, there's also the possibility of superconducting
| motors. Although that's mostly for larger scale applications,
| (near-)room temperature superconductors also have been
| demonstrated and folks are searching for methods to allow
| them to work at lower pressures.
|
| So I think there's actually lot of room for improvements
| beyond low effort prototypes from big automakers. Tesla is
| doing really well with high efficiency powertrains. There's
| also the added dimension of integration with reduction
| gearing (as electric motors like to spin fast).
| an_opabinia wrote:
| While I agree with you broadly, Tesla loses money on its car
| business. It was profitable for a full year because of the
| money it makes from selling carbon credits. That's not exactly
| a federal subsidy but it's not making cars either. So I feel
| like going at this all angry complaining about imprecision or a
| lack of focus on details comes off ironic.
| minhazm wrote:
| This is a common misconception that keeps getting repeated
| for some reason. It's silly to exclude the regulatory credit
| income but then also count things like stock based
| compensation and capitol expenditures for new factory builds.
|
| Tesla did $1.6 billion in regulatory credits in 2020. Tesla
| stock based compensation in 2020 was $1.7 billion due to Elon
| Musk's performance based compensation plan and TSLA
| skyrocketing. So the car business is clearly profitable.
|
| Then there's the capitol expenditure on building out new
| factories and expanding their production capacity. From
| Tesla's 2020 Q3 10Q filing:
|
| > we currently expect our capital expenditures to be at the
| high end of our range of $2.5 to $3.5 billion in 2020 and
| increase to $4.5 to $6 billion in each of the next two fiscal
| years.
|
| They're planning on spending up to $12 billion between
| 2021-2022 to build out new factories and expanding their
| capacity. Their car business is clearly profitable, they're
| just spending all of the money to grow.
| an_opabinia wrote:
| Is it a misconception? If the credit didn't exist they
| would not be profitable. They lose money on the cars. They
| sell more cars, they lose more money. I like the company
| and I like electric cars, but I'm not stupid, I'm not
| misconceiving anything.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| There were similar things at the dawn of the jet age. Someone
| wrote a paper demonstrating that jet power could not improve
| over propeller power because radial-flow compressors generated
| too much drag and axial-flow compressors were too inefficient.
| What the author of the paper didn't know is that, contemporary
| to him, it was discovered that shaping each blade of an axial-
| flow compressor like an airfoil significantly improved
| efficiency. Thus a "physics problem" became a "manufacturing
| problem"
| baybal2 wrote:
| > Say you have an opinion piece in a news paper that says that
| electric cars will always be expensive toys for the rich.
|
| Well, you don't see poor people buying EVs that much. That's
| car manufacturer statistics, which I believe deserves a good
| degree of trust.
|
| In the market for new cars, poor people buy cheapest IC cars,
| but not cheapest EVs.
|
| I will take the point that middle class is now buying budget
| EVs, but you don't have real economy class EVs selling that
| well in the West, and in China as well.
|
| Wuling Mini EV will classify as a true economy class EV, but
| what people lauding it don't say it that Chinese IC vehicles in
| the same price range outsell Mini EV many, many times over.
| nickik wrote:
| Well, this is the argument against EV from the beginning.
| Literally people were shitting on Tesla because they started
| with a the Roadster.
|
| Now they have a much, much better car for significantly lower
| price produced at much, much higher volume.
|
| This is just gone continue, each generation produced will
| move down market.
|
| Poor people will never buy new cars, but 2nd hand Bolt EV are
| already a bargain considering what you save on fuel cost.
|
| As more EV are produced, more EV are gone be sold second
| hand. And at the same time new cheaper EV are gone be
| interceded in the market.
|
| There is no inherent reason why an EV should be more
| expensive then a gas car, but there is a 100 year technology
| and infrastructure gap, this gap needs to be filled by the
| rich, upper middle class and now the middle class.
|
| This is basically the same with every new mass technology.
| cbozeman wrote:
| Bolts are a bargain right now because of a safety issue so
| serious it has a STOP-SELL RECALL order, meaning
| dealerships aren't allowed to sell them until its fixed,
| which happens sometime this month.
|
| https://electrek.co/2021/02/18/bolt-ev-recall-chevy-
| software...
| WebDanube wrote:
| I'm not a free market apologist by any means, but we also
| didn't see "poor people" or folks in the lower economic
| strata buy mobile devices and smartphones when they became
| first available, at least not the scale we're seeing now
| (without mentioning the fact that the devices were crazy
| expensive when first launched, adjusting for inflation).
|
| Economy of scale is a thing, and imo it's OK to use the rich
| and the wealthy as 'guinea pigs' of sorts (which mostly is
| voluntary as the wealthy are more likely to make riskier bets
| on new tech than people living paycheck-to-paycheck).
|
| As EV market extends downwards on the economic 'pecking
| order,' I'm really hoping even more drastic cost reduction
| and lower barriers of entry into the EV market for folks that
| are not rich.
| iagovar wrote:
| An expensive phone is about 500-1000EUR. A cheap EV is in
| the 20K neighborhood, and the functionality is pretty bad
| compared to a cheap second-hand utility car (pretty hard to
| travel outside your city). Even when regulations push
| prices up, it's still far more economical to buy a cheap
| gas car than a cheap EV.
|
| Even in Europe there are plenty of countries where many
| people can't afford an EV. They can afford second-hand ICE
| cars. So unless there can be a second-hand market of EVs
| for about 6K without worrying about the battery, and with a
| similar functionality of a second-hand ICE car, then yes,
| EVs will be for upper income brackets.
|
| And I'm not even mentioning that most people lives in
| apartment buildings, and it's very likely that your car
| sleeps in the street.
|
| I've seen this discussions around here. People won't buy
| EVs in the near future because they are expensive, have
| very low range, you have to have a house, or own a flat
| (because nobody will pay for a charger installation in a
| rented flat) with garage, etc.
|
| What people is buying is little electric Scooters. Most of
| them are <500EUR and you can charge em everywhere. It makes
| sense for travelling inside a city. Spending 20K for not
| being able to go from Santiago to Madrid, doesn't make any
| sense.
| the8472 wrote:
| Nissan leafs are get into the price range and they're
| basically first-generation mass-market EVs. Yes people do
| buy these. And in some european cities street-
| side/lamppost chargers already are a thing. Multiple
| conditions are only going to get better, not worse.
| iagovar wrote:
| Nissan Leafs are ~20k for Km0 offers in Spain. They are
| very limited cars in range, functionality is behind than
| a 10K Km0 Fiat Panda. Street chargers are scarce, and
| usually expensive, and I have a hard time picturing a
| charger in every parking space in my city.
| the8472 wrote:
| > Km0 offers
|
| That hardly qualifies as a second-hand market car.
|
| > Street chargers are scarce, and usually expensive
|
| In the past they didn't exist. Today they're scarce. In
| the future it'll look different. This thread is about
| trends after all.
|
| > And I have a hard time picturing a charger in every
| parking space in my city.
|
| We can start smaller of course, it only needs to be
| scaled up with EV adaoption, not reach 100% penetration
| immediately. The electric scooters you mentioned would
| benefit too.
| noahtallen wrote:
| There's still a large difference between upper-middle class
| and upper class. I think many middle class jobs can support
| owning a Tesla Model 3 or other mid-range new car but not a
| Porsche.
|
| When I hear "expensive toy for the rich", I think of a
| millionaire's 3rd lambo, not Bill's Silverado lease. Initial
| Teslas were sports cars, and now it's squarely in middle
| class territory. Still a big improvement and a big market,
| and in several years, that leads to a good second-hand market
| and even cheaper EVs.
|
| I think for many (not all, of course) people the problem is
| not price as much as practicality. I could probably be
| convinced to spend more for an EV, but without chargers in
| most apartment buildings and with limited charging networks
| where I might go, it's not justifiable yet.
| xyzzy21 wrote:
| Not when I can buy an ICE and operate for cheaper - note
| the nearest "charge station" to me is 30+ miles away and
| then the next nearest is 100+ miles beyond that.
|
| The drop in diesel and gasoline prices recently only
| cements the value of an ICE vehicle.
| turtlebits wrote:
| Unless you drive a lot, you can charge at home?
|
| It costs me about $6.00 to charge my 60kwh EV, which has
| a range of 238 miles.
| toast0 wrote:
| It's been a while since I rented a place to live, but
| charging infrastructure for rentals is a big issue.
|
| You can't buy an EV if you can't charge at home. And you
| won't buy an EV if you can charge at home if you're not
| sure you can charge it if you move. (Not to mention if
| you think you might move to another state, not being able
| to drive your car there is a question mark)
| noahtallen wrote:
| That's why I mention practicality! I think yes, for
| people who strictly buy the cheapest car that's not bad,
| it will be some time before EVs are viable.
|
| But many people, including myself, think that EVs are
| better in general. If I was comparing a $15k car to a
| $20k car, I could be convinced to spend more on an EV if
| I was just comparing the vehicles themselves in an ideal
| environment. But that decision doesn't make sense until
| the "practicality" problem is solved.
| iagovar wrote:
| > I think many middle class jobs can support owning a Tesla
| Model 3
|
| In a handful of countries.
| noahtallen wrote:
| I can't disagree with that. I feel like the EV
| conversation is centered on "richer" countries anyways
| because of infrastructure and tech. I'd be curious to
| learn how EVs are being approached in countries which are
| still developing infrastructure
| lanstin wrote:
| They have electric tuk-tuks already. I think batteries /
| electric motor are inherently simpler to operate, if not
| fabricate, than ICE so likely to be cheaper at the mass
| scale. Even solar + batteries + electric motor. And they
| scale up and down - you can tiny electric things and
| giant electric things.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > I feel like the EV conversation is centered on "richer"
| countries anyways because of infrastructure and tech.
|
| I'd say EV are making inroads there exactly because of
| _no_ infrastructure, and tech.
|
| In Vietnam, people choose electric scooters over petrol
| largely because their maintainance free nature, and no
| need for fluids, or waiting at petrol pumps.
|
| People like that they don't risk expensive, and lengthy
| breadown of their scooter when their job depend on it.
| audunw wrote:
| > Well, you don't see poor people buying EVs that much.
|
| You don't see poor people buying new cars that much. Which
| for now is pretty much the same thing as not buying EVs,
| since almost all EVs on the road are relatively new.
|
| That's starting to change here in Norway. There's a decent
| amount of used EVs entering the second-hand market. And if
| you can deal with the short range it's definitely preferable
| to buy one, since they're way more reliable than on older
| used ICE.
|
| The other things helping people buy cheaper EVs here is that
| it's easier to deal with the shorter range since you have
| fast charging stations everywhere now.
|
| So what needs to improve is: - More used EVs (just have to
| get middle class people to buy more EVs and wait 5-10 years)
| - Better charging infrastructure (again, get the middle class
| to buy EVs to help fund the build-out) - Cheaper EV batteries
| (again, just get whoever can to buy more EVs, to fund R&D and
| drive economies of scale)
|
| That's why it's so damaging when countries make EV incentives
| with caps. Just make it a percentage of the price (or cut all
| taxes) and don't worry about the benefits going to rich
| people buying luxury EVs. Increase income taxes on the rich
| instead if that's a problem. This is like the one case where
| trickle-down economics kind of work, since buying expensive
| EVs now makes future EVs and charging stations cheaper.
|
| And I think cheap BEVs will be a HUGE benefit to poor people
| in the future, since it saves on gas and maintenance costs in
| the long term.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > And I think cheap BEVs will be a HUGE benefit to poor
| people in the future, since it saves on gas and maintenance
| costs in the long term.
|
| I believe the same, if you race for the lowest cost
| possible, eventually an EV will be cheaper than the
| cheapest IC powered car for those exact reasons.
|
| ... But as I said above. Wuling MiniEV costs like $5500,
| which is cheaper than low-end Chinese petrol, or diesel
| engined sedans priced at $7000-$8000, but is still
| massively, massively outsold by IC cars in its price
| bracket despite China's massive subsidies for EVs, and
| quite draconian curbs on IC powered cars.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| In part because the MiniEV has really low range (think
| first generation Leaf) whereas any IC car is gonna be
| like a Model 3 at least.
|
| 200 miles (on the EPA cycle) really is the minimum for a
| pure electric car IMHO. 250 miles, really. Otherwise it
| looks like less of a value than an IC car.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Depends who you ask. For most people in the world, even
| 60km-80km will be more than enough.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| > And I think cheap BEVs will be a HUGE benefit to poor
| people in the future, since it saves on gas and maintenance
| costs in the long term.
|
| I've been wondering whether the opposite is true. We might
| find the cost of replacing the battery puts a floor on the
| price of old EV's. I wouldn't be surprised if we are coming
| to the end of bangernomics.
| Animats wrote:
| US manufacturers still see EVs as a premium option. Batteries
| are getting cheap, but it's not showing up in vehicle prices.
|
| Jeep has backed off, yet again, from producing an all-
| electric Jeep Wrangler. They originally announced one for
| 2020. Then 2021. Then 2022. They shipped some "mild hybrid"
| things. They just showed an all-electric Jeep Wrangler, but
| it's a "concept car" only. And, for some reason, has a
| 6-speed manual transmission.
|
| Even when Jeep was still talking about a 2022 Wrangler EV, it
| was announced as being available only at the highest "trim
| level", priced 2X over the base product.
|
| Ford just slipped the electric Ford F-150 to the 2023 model
| year. "The estimation for the base price is $100,000" says
| one source. For a pickup truck whose current base price is
| $28,940. Ford's electric Mustang starts at $61,000. The base
| gas-powered Mustang is $27,155.
|
| This seems to be a pattern with US manufacturers. Electrics
| cost 2x the price of the gas model.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _you don 't see poor people buying EVs that much_
|
| You do, however, see upper middle class people buying them.
| Which wasn't the case a decade ago, when the Leaf came out
| [1].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| How about hybrids like Priuses?
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| > you don't see poor people buying EVs that much
|
| Poor people buy 5 to 15 year old used cars. There aren't that
| many 5-15 year old used EV's.
|
| Yet.
| waheoo wrote:
| This same problem has plagued climate science as well, giving
| munition for deniers and otherwise just confusing the public.
|
| You want to see the real writing on the wall?
|
| The IPCC report takes 10 year old settled science and makes
| models using it.
|
| The real, more recent data is much, much worse.
| u320 wrote:
| > There are numerous arguments about how we will always need
| coal power or nuclear power, or natural gas and they all base
| it on old studies with obsolete high costs of batteries.
|
| This is simply not true. I'm sure there are some bad articles
| out there but that's true for anything.
|
| See e.g.
| https://www.cell.com/joule/pdf/S2542-4351(18)30386-6.pdf where
| they authors find non-intermittent power production to be
| necessary even under an assumption of a further 75% drop (from
| 2018 levels) in battery prices.
| ExcavateGrandMa wrote:
| I swear I've sold my drones and can't buy new one :/
| dragosmocrii wrote:
| The article says that today a battery pack the size of a backpack
| and that weighs about 40kg, can power a house for a day. Is that
| really so? Would that be a normal house, being powered for an
| entire day? I find it hard to believe that battery would pack
| that much energy
| turtlebits wrote:
| The wording in the article isn't great, but they are referring
| to the power consumption for a household in 1990.
| shoo wrote:
| Another anecdote: I rent a 50m^2 apartment. Electricity
| consumption for the apartment, averaged over trailing 12
| months, is 4.5 kWh / day. This excludes: energy for stove
| top/oven (natural gas) and energy for hot water (paid for as
| part of rent, cannot see the details). Consumption for two
| people, including one person working from home full time.
| Relatively modern apartment that is warm enough in winter
| without active heating.
|
| This will not be representative of energy usage in houses,
| larger apartments with many exterior sides & lots of exposed
| glass.
|
| edit: house prior to that was an older 100 m^2 semi-detached
| house with much worse insulation. Similar setup with natural
| gas for cooking & hot water. Annual electricity consumption was
| 1750 kWh / year so about 4.8 kWh / day on average, for two
| people. Not so different to the current situation. Curious.
| From memory we ran the air conditioner on a few days in summer
| and electric heating in the depths of winter. From memory the
| house was somewhat unpleasantly cold some of the time so
| perhaps we tended to put on warm clothing rather than try to
| heat the whole place.
| kccqzy wrote:
| That sounds reasonable. My house is about twice your size and
| so is my electricity consumption (8.8 kWh/day last billing
| cycle). Also doesn't exclude stove/oven/hot water as these
| are all powered by natural gas.
|
| I was shocked by a few other comments saying 30 kWh/day. Is
| it because they use electricity to cook and heat water?
| tyingq wrote:
| A Tesla Powerwall 2 weighs 114.0 kg and provides 13.5 kWh.
|
| Average US household electricity consumption is 877 kWh/month,
| which would be 29kWh/day.
|
| Either they mean a very efficient/small house, or homeowners
| with unusually frugal habits.
|
| Edit: Average UK household electricity consumption appears to
| be around 10kWh/day.
| dv_dt wrote:
| It's enough for the twilight evening usage for a household
| when paired with a solar system.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| Your point still stands, but there's probably some small
| correction factor necessary since the article seems to be
| talking about the weight of the cells only.
|
| Although I'd bet the weight of the cells does make up the
| majority of the mass of a Powerwall, other components might
| have significant weight. From some quick, cursory research,
| it seems to have a metal frame/cover and apparently has some
| kind of liquid cooling. (Also, minimizing weight for a
| Powerwall seems less important than for an EV.)
| sgt wrote:
| South Africa here.
|
| Our house uses about 20 kWh a day during the summer, with
| some minor AC usage in one of the rooms when needed.
|
| During the winter probably about 30kWh, and that excludes
| extra costs like wood for fireplace.
|
| My house is fully insulated and all windows are double
| glazed, so that keeps energy usage more efficient. I also
| have a solar heater (aka "geyser") which lowers energy costs
| even more. So with that in mind, I really can't believe
| they're using less than this in Europe...
| bobthepanda wrote:
| They might be just using less electricity but other means
| to generate their needs.
|
| I've heard that the EU has a lot more district heating
| (which wouldn't show up in an electricity bill, AFAIK) and
| I'd imagine a fair deal of older buildings have a boiler
| using oil or gas or something else to burn.
|
| AC is also just not very prevalent.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > I'd imagine a fair deal of older buildings have a
| boiler using oil or gas or something else to burn.
|
| In the UK gas boilers are common even in newbuild homes.
| I don't know a single person with AC (though it's common
| in offices).
| natch wrote:
| The average US house is not the average house, nor is it
| representative of normal in the world we live in, which
| happens to dwarf the US by a factor of roughly 25.
| tyingq wrote:
| I don't assume they mean something smaller than a factor of
| 25 either. 1.2kWh would be substantially less than 40kg.
| kragen wrote:
| No, no, the world is 25 times bigger than the US, by
| population. So it's ridiculous to equate houses with US
| houses, especially when reading a British publication.
| tyingq wrote:
| The article uses US dollars quite a lot. That's why I
| posted US stats, marked as such. I did update it with a
| UK average as well.
|
| Also, FWIW, the North American edition of the Economist
| accounts for more than half the readers. UK readers are
| less than 20% of the total.
| natch wrote:
| Kragen was right, I was talking about the size of the
| world. The US is not representative of average or normal.
| Nor is the UK. And UK publications, due perhaps to
| colonial history, tend to take a more global view so I
| would not assume their notion of an average house is
| centered on the UK either.
| tyingq wrote:
| Neither is air conditioning representative of the world,
| or people with a "house" that have $2k to spend on a 40kg
| lithium battery plus more on the other stuff like
| inverters, frames, installation. But all are clearly
| noted in the article as part of the target audience.
| kragen wrote:
| The Economist usually takes a worldwide perspective;
| that's why this article uses US dollars and French
| kilograms and meters, because those are the most widely
| recognized units, even though the article focuses mostly
| on developments in the US.
|
| As for your other comment, that air conditioning and
| spending US$2000 isn't "representative of the world," I
| think you will be very surprised if at some point you
| travel outside the US. The rest of the world does not
| consist of Elbonian mud farmers as you seem to think. Air
| conditioning is common throughout the warmer parts of the
| world; the majority of the world's population has access
| to air conditioning, though not always at home. The gross
| world product is about US$17500 per person per year, PPP.
| Someone wrote:
| Or houses not in the USA.
| http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/average-household-
| electricity...:
|
| _"The average American or Canadian household in 2010 used
| about twenty times more than the typical Nigerian household,
| and two to three times more than a typical European home"_
| umvi wrote:
| Why is that? Is it because North Americans use electricity
| for cooking and heating whereas other countries use gas for
| that?
| nightski wrote:
| We average 400-500 in the spring, fall, and winter. In
| the summer with AC however we'll double that. We are in a
| northern climate, I have to imagine in the south it gets
| pretty spendy for AC.
| ajuc wrote:
| Air conditioning isn't needed in many EU countries except
| for a few days a year (so it's not worth to even install
| it in private homes, modern offices mostly have them
| though for some reason).
|
| Also depending on the country few people use cloth driers
| - you just hang your clothes on a cable and let them dry
| by themselves.
|
| Houses in colder parts of EU are also usually better
| isolated than in US ([1] that's a typical Polish house
| for example), and more people live in flats in blocks
| instead of independent houses (so heat loses are vastly
| reduced because you only have 1 or 2 outdoors walls).
|
| Homes are also simply bigger in US. Average home size
| (including flats) in my country is a little over 70
| square meters. It's probably bigger in western Europe but
| not by that much.
|
| Also big houses usually have 2/3 stories instead of being
| very "wide".
|
| And electric heating/cooking isn't very popular, but I
| think that depends on the country.
|
| It all goes back to electricity prices - in Poland in
| 1980s most houses had no isolation, everybody heated with
| coal which had fixed (and very low) prices. Then
| communism ended, prices were free to change with the
| market, some taxes were introduced, and suddenly
| everybody isolated their houses in like 10 years.
| Otherwise you burned money like crazy.
|
| [1] https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pressland-
| cms/cache/__...
| twelvechairs wrote:
| House size is basically proportional to the increased
| energy. The average US home is 2-2.5 larger than European
| homes [0]. This doesn't just mean more space to heat and
| cool but also more space for additional appliances.
|
| [0] https://i0.wp.com/shrinkthatfootprint.com/wp-
| content/uploads...
| baybal2 wrote:
| > ([1] that's a typical Polish house for example),
|
| I believe a typical Polish "house" will be an apartment.
| ajuc wrote:
| 42% of Poles live in apartaments. It was slightly above
| 50% several years ago.
| thesteamboat wrote:
| Sorry to nitpick, but I assume you mean EU houses are
| better _insulated_ than those in the US, rather than
| isolated.
| ajuc wrote:
| Yup. False friend. Thanks for teaching me a new word :)
| r00fus wrote:
| Global Warming is changing that. Anecdotally in my
| observations, more new houses in France now have AC
| whereas it was rare only 5 years ago.
| bluGill wrote:
| Global warming is not that much difference. People just
| can afford ac now so they buy it.
| polote wrote:
| Reversible ac are more energy efficient that heater, x3 I
| think
| throwawayboise wrote:
| People are also fatter and less tolerant of warm weather.
| tyingq wrote:
| I suspect big houses, poor insulation, air conditioning,
| and gluttony.
|
| Most of the US houses I've been in use either gas or fuel
| oil for heating.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| We have lots of elctric furnaces or heat pumps in the
| southern and western states where winters are milder. The
| air conditioning is the real usage. The insulation in new
| homes is good, but the insulation to keep heat out needs
| to be in walls as much as ceilings which is harder to
| retrofit. Modern AC systems help quite a lot and keeping
| heat away from ac ducting in the attic by insulating them
| amd adding roof vents and radiant barrier to keep the
| attic cool. Lighter colors so your south facing wall
| doesn't fry eggs (literally) also help.
| fwsgonzo wrote:
| Probably due to differences in standards, like wall
| isolation (I don't know the english terms). My house has
| 25cm isolation in the walls and 40cm isolation under the
| roof. I also have 3-layer windows and a thick metal door.
| The ventilation system is isolated and the air heat is
| reused to save electricity. This is for a 260sqm house.
| fulafel wrote:
| US housing is very roomy, often features AC and poor
| insulation, and electricity is cheap and avergae incomes
| are high.
| geoduck14 wrote:
| It's cause we're #1!!!
|
| /s
| 300africans wrote:
| Here in Burkina faso, I use between 5 and 12kwh per day with
| air con some months taking it close to 15kwh. If the price
| keeps coming down and with some solar installation, one can
| leave the grid in a couple of years time
| marcosdumay wrote:
| I imagine most of the aircon energy usage coincides with
| the times of peak photovoltaic generation. So if you
| calculate by total energy consumption, you'll overestimate
| things by a huge margin.
| Armisael16 wrote:
| You can imagine that, but it isn't true. AC usage is
| relatively low in the middle of the day because people
| let their houses warm up while their at work. It jumps at
| the end of the workday.
| _JamesA_ wrote:
| Is that still true in the work from home post covid era?
| nicoburns wrote:
| > AC usage is relatively low in the middle of the day
| because people let their houses warm up while their at
| work
|
| Presumably if electricity was free during th day and
| expensive at night, that habit would change rapdily.
| baybal2 wrote:
| How is life in Burkina Faso?
| petra wrote:
| So 29kWH/day. Say you get half of that from your solar panels
| at sunrise. 13.9kWh is almost the other half.
| ghaff wrote:
| It also looks like a Powerwall 2 costs about $7,500 plus
| about another $5K for installation.
|
| I use about 20kWh per day--I have a somewhat smaller house--
| and vaguely looked into whole house batteries a few months
| back and concluded they would only make sense if I had it
| wired into just a few critical systems like my furnace. But,
| at the end of the day, I should still just get a propane-
| fueled generator at this point if I ever got anything.
|
| So $2K for a battery that can power a house for a day seems
| almost an order of magnitude off if they literally mean power
| an entire normal house.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| > But, at the end of the day, I should still just get a
| propane-fueled generator at this point if I ever got
| anything.
|
| Yes, a propane or natural gas generator is a lot more
| flexible/higher capacity
| gok wrote:
| At best it would store about 8kWh, so... it would have to be a
| pretty efficient house.
| Phenomenit wrote:
| I think that depends on how much heating/cooling is being
| used.it should be enough for just lights and devices.
| Tade0 wrote:
| 40kg translates to 4-9kWh depending on the chemistry, meanwhile
| houses in the UK draw around 3kWh/day averaged over a year so
| unless a house is woefully inefficient, it checks out.
| andi999 wrote:
| 3kWh/day so around 1100 kwh/a seems to me on the low side.
| Two person household in Germany uses 3600kwh/a electricity.
| Do you have sources?
| spockz wrote:
| 3kWh seems way too low. We consumed on average 7.3kWh/day.
| According to our energy supplier this was on the low side for
| our house type and family size.
| tzs wrote:
| Every UK source I can find puts it at around 8-10 kWh/day.
| E.g.,
|
| https://smarterbusiness.co.uk/blogs/average-gas-
| electricity-...
|
| https://www.electriciancourses4u.co.uk/useful-
| resources/how-...
|
| https://www.ovoenergy.com/guides/energy-guides/how-much-
| elec...
| rconti wrote:
| No way. 90kWh/month?
|
| My Silicon Valley house consumed ~450kWh/month (15kWh/day)
| (before we bought an EV) which is very much on the low side
| from what I see here. 1100sqft. No A/C. Rarely run the heat.
| Every single light in the house is an LED. Gas appliances. 2
| people, not home during the day.
| andi999 wrote:
| Your neighbour is stealing power. 15kwh/day means you are
| permanently using 600 Watts. Do you have a stationary
| (desktop) computer? Or do you underestimate heating. You
| can burn through your whole years budget easily in less
| than two month. What about the oven, I mean do you bake?
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| Ever heard of a refrigerators and freezers?
| PeterisP wrote:
| A decent refrigerator should consume less than a kWh per
| day, perhaps 1.5 kWh/day for refrigerator + standalone
| freezer - this is something that has changed over the
| last couple decades, at least in the EU there has been a
| strong push towards more efficient appliances and
| refrigerators consume much less power than older models.
| ghaff wrote:
| He did say gas appliances which I assume would include
| the oven and might include a dryer. Presumably not the
| refrigerator though (there are propane refrigerators but
| you wouldn't normally get one if you have electricity). I
| probably draw 400-500 watts even if I'm traveling.
| rconti wrote:
| Sounds about right. My house, at idle, uses 300w last
| time I measured it, probably more now. Most of that would
| be electronics. A rack in the garage with a 24 port PoE
| switch powering a couple of APs, and a router, a NAS, a
| handful of small devices, plus whatever drain is used by
| the various laptops and iMac at sleep, and the clocks on
| the various appliances, the small aquarium pump on the
| cat fountain.
|
| The appliances, as I mentioned, are all gas, but still a
| clothes dryer and a washing machine consume some
| electricity, as does the pump on my furnace, as do
| ceiling fans in use when necessary.
|
| And of course, the devices that cycle on and off all the
| time; the refrigerator, instant hot tap under the sink.
|
| And then there's the actual electricity we consume during
| the times we're home to do things like light the house,
| watch television or use computers, listen to music, etc.
| It is quite easy to use 2000-2500w when home and active
| in the evenings.
| labawi wrote:
| > Average US household .. 29kWh/day
|
| > houses in the UK .. 3kWh/day
|
| Seems believable from what I've heard.
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| I think in the US it's common to heat and cool badly
| insulated houses with electricity, whereas in europe almost
| nobody cools, heat comes from other sources and insulation
| is taking way more seriously, especially for anything built
| recently.
|
| The best way to reduce your energy bill (whichever source)
| is to live in the right climate zone I guess.
| ghaff wrote:
| Electric heat isn't super common, especially in
| standalone houses, in areas where you need a lot of heat
| in the US. I don't know the numbers off the top of my
| head but electricity costs a lot more than gas or oil.
| You're right about the AC but I still use 20 kWh even
| with no AC (and no electric heat).
| nicoburns wrote:
| Do you have any idea what that is going on? Just really
| inefficient appliances?
| ghaff wrote:
| I don't think anything is "going on" given that my
| consumption is about average for my area. I do have 3
| fridges which are all pretty old at this point which is
| certainly some ongoing load. I also have at least the
| usual number of electronic devices consuming at least
| standby loads. Then there are the usual intermittent
| things like electric dryer, dishwasher, etc.
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| Thanks for the insight. I vaguely remembered that people
| run the ac in reverse for heat, but that is probably only
| in paces that almost need no heating.
|
| Do you know why you use that much?
|
| Do you heat your water with electricity?
|
| Fridge, freezer, tv, WiFi, Desktop PC, charging phones
| and laptop, ligths.
| ncallaway wrote:
| - AC is a very common consumer of large amounts of
| electricity (depending on the region, many regions will
| have almost no AC while other regions will have it in
| every building running almost constantly)
|
| - Electrical heat is not the most common form of heating,
| but it's been growing a lot and is also a big consumer
| when it is used
|
| - Laundry Washer/Dryer are pretty large consumers (mostly
| the dryer)
|
| - Water heaters are often electrical
|
| - Electrical ovens and stove ranges are pretty common,
| which can pull quite a bit depending on how much use they
| receive
|
| - Microwaves pull a bit, but not huge
| nicoburns wrote:
| (electric tumble) dryers are an interesting point.
| They're getting more common, but most people I know in
| the UK either don't have one, or have one but don't use
| it for normal washes (they use a washing line or a
| clothes horse).
| ghaff wrote:
| AC is a big one. Where I live in New England, we usually
| have a couple spells where I really need to turn on my
| office window unit for a week or so. Those months can
| drive my electricity consumption up by 200 kWH or more
| for the month--and that's just one small window unit run
| intermittently during the day to cool one small room.
| ghaff wrote:
| Not really. My electricity usage is considered normal so
| I've never really looked into it.
|
| Additional freezer, washer & dryer, oven (I have a
| propane range but many do not), microwave, there's some
| additional water heating in the dishwasher as well as for
| drying, TVs, other electronics like printer stereo etc.,
| furnace/water heater are oil but still have pumps etc.
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| That's fascinating as it's not really that different from
| myself.
|
| I'm alone in a flat tough, I guess you are a family?
| ghaff wrote:
| Nope. 1800 sqft house. re: the freezers, I just like to
| cook a lot.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| AC is extremely efficient for what it's doing, but it
| only works because the temperature difference is
| relatively minor. Where they can get away with it, they
| use something similar to AC for heating in the US.
|
| But it doesn't work everywhere for heating. Consider that
| even in the hottest climates in the US, you're cooling
| your air by 30 degrees. But in the coolest climates,
| you're heating your air by 60 degrees.
|
| My sister has this system in Philadelphia, but when it
| gets cold enough the more inefficient raw electric
| heating kicks in, and that really chews through
| electricity like no other.
| benjohnson wrote:
| The 3kWh figure for UK is just electricity - add 12kWH for
| heating energy from gas to get a more reasonable number
| given that people in the UK generally don't live in shacks.
|
| https://www.theenergyshop.com/guides/average-gas-and-
| electri...
| ghaff wrote:
| Yes, although the 30 kWh US figure doesn't include a lot
| of gas/oil heat in the North/mountains either. (It does
| include a lot of AC but average electricity consumption
| is still a _lot_ higher apparently in the US even taking
| that into account. I assume bigger houses is one reason.)
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| 1 KWh/day for Fridge. Lights should do less than
| 0.5KWh/day. Washing machine is maybe 0.3KWh/day. Maybe,
| other electronics might add up to 1-2KWh/day. Cooling is
| not required most of the year. Maybe fans for a couple of
| months. Heating is separate (EDIT: UK figure), as others
| have noted.
|
| What else are you using electricity on?
| kragen wrote:
| Heating, which can easily be 5 kW, 120 kWh/day; many US
| houses are heated electrically, so it's not always
| separate. Air conditioning can easily be 3 kW, or 72
| kWh/day, although it's usually only on during the
| daytime, so figure 30 kWh/day; it's common to run a 240
| VAC circuit in the US for the air conditioner because the
| 2.4 kW of a standard 120 VAC 20 A circuit is
| insufficient. Incandescent lights could easily be 1 kW
| (which you get to offset against the heating part of the
| year), which is another 24 kWh/day. A household stove is
| usually about 4 kW if you're cooking on two burners, but
| you're probably only cooking about 2 hours a day, so
| that's 8 kWh/day if you cook at home. (Some people cook
| with other fuels, but others use electric stoves.) Hot
| water heaters are also a few hundred watts, I think; an
| on-demand tankless hot-water heater is on the order of 3
| kW, but in the US hot-water tanks are far more common,
| constantly leaking heat through their fiberglass
| insulation.
|
| In Arizona and New Mexico, where I grew up, common
| inefficient houses need air conditioning during the day
| _and_ heating at night much of the year.
|
| So it's easy to see how, even if cooling is not required
| most of the year, you could easily use 50 kWh/day of
| electrical energy in the kinds of huge houses people have
| in the US.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| I think AC is usually 440v around here. It is the largest
| consumer.
| ncallaway wrote:
| > Heating is separate, as others have noted.
|
| Heating isn't separate for me. For me, cooling isn't
| required most of the year (probably similar to UK
| weather), but for many parts of the US cooling is
| required almost year-round.
| ghaff wrote:
| Really? Houses in the US draw 10x on average relative to the
| UK? That seems unlikely.
|
| ADDED: I can believe there's some difference because of AC
| but I basically don't have AC (just one window unit I run a
| few days a year), have oil heat, and have a somewhat smaller
| than average house but I still use about 20kWh/day.
|
| The delta does seem to be real though.
| kragen wrote:
| I wonder if your house is smaller than the world average or
| even the UK average? It probably has less thermal mass than
| the UK average. What are you spending your 800 watts on?
| maxerickson wrote:
| My highest months come out to less than 10 kWh per day.
| This is work from home + running the furnace (blower and
| pumps) and running a humidifier. Lots of months will be
| less than 200 KWh total.
|
| This is a medium size house in a colder region of the US.
|
| Do you have an electric hot water heater? That would
| probably boost my use a lot.
| f6v wrote:
| Very much depends on the home. Tesla Powerwall 2 seems to be
| 13.5 kWh at 114 kg. Energy consumption can be anything from 30
| to 40[1]. So one Powerwall 2 unit probably won't get you
| through the day if you use that much.
|
| [1] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-
| energy/electricit...
| natch wrote:
| Getting you through the day is not really the point though.
|
| The point is
|
| 1) shifting some consumption during peak hours off of peak
| rates
|
| and
|
| 2) having backup to get you through a limited outage, not
| necessarily at your full normal consumption level but without
| having to be in the dark / without internet / without phone
| and possibly car charging.
|
| Nobody should evaluate this by whether one battery pack by
| itself provides all the energy anyone needs for everything
| with no limits. It's one component with several good use
| cases.
| spockz wrote:
| I'm not sure about regulations in the US but in The
| Netherlands you cannot just attach a battery and think you
| are independent of the grid. To protect the net and people
| working on the net, power sources behind the meter must
| disengage when the net/mains power drops. This effectively
| disables your independence plan. If you want to be
| independent you have to get some expensive mechanism
| installed that will decouple your house from the net in
| case of net failure and bring it back when the mains is up
| again. And you need get it certified periodically.
|
| So unless you have enough generation to completely decouple
| from the net you are not really independent or it will cost
| you.
| kragen wrote:
| This is correct in the US as well, except that I'm not
| sure about the periodic certification thing.
| natch wrote:
| I agree with what you said but it seems you may have
| meant to reply to a different comment. Independence is
| another topic, certainly related somewhat, although it
| didn't come up in my comment... interesting nonetheless.
| spockz wrote:
| Actually I did. I interpreted the limited outage from
| point 2 as the supplier not being delivering power for a
| short period. If that were to happen in a normal
| situation here the regulation says your sources have to
| cut off as well. Unless you install some additional gear.
|
| So without additional Equipment just having solar and a
| power wall wouldn't help during outages.
| jccooper wrote:
| Transfer switches are standard for pretty much any
| generator setup. An automatic one is a bit more
| expensive, but hardly a deal breaker.
| spockz wrote:
| Okay. Perhaps I used the wrong sources when I researched
| what it would take to be able to handle outages. The
| costs for the installation and periodic "transfer switch"
| were significant, moreover because doing it as a private
| individual instead of a company was hard to arrange.
| kragen wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density_Extended_Refere...
| lists "battery, Lithium ion" as 0.46-0.72 MJ/kg.
| : user@host:~; units 2529 units, 72 prefixes, 56
| nonlinear units You have: 40 kg * 0.6 MJ/kg
| You want: MJ * 24 / 0.041666667
|
| (The 13.5 kWh in 114 kg tyingq cites for a Powerwall 2 in
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26682770 works out to 0.43
| MJ/kg, which includes some power electronics as well as the
| batteries themselves. The US$12500 price ghaff cites in
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26682837 works out to
| under 4 kJ/US$, or US$925/kWh, which is a terribly high price
| even for lithium-ion.)
|
| 24 MJ would be 1 MJ/hour for 24 hours, or 3 MJ/hour for 8
| hours, about 300 or 800 watts, respectively. Some houses use
| much more than that; others use much less. If you're looking at
| your electric bill, 500 watts would be about 370 kWh per month:
| You have: 500 watts * 1 month You want: kWh
| * 365.2422 / 0.0027379093
|
| 40 kg of lithium-ion batteries are indeed roughly the size of a
| backpack ([?]20 liters), though I wouldn't call it a _small_
| backpack. Around here, the retail price for the batteries would
| probably be closer to US$2400 retail than the less than US$2000
| they cite, but that 's not an error in their calculations; it's
| just that they're using a lower price of US$140/kWh.
|
| The article claims that in the early 01990s this quantity of
| batteries would have cost US$75k. I'm pretty sure this is
| wrong. This quantity of _lithium-ion_ batteries might have cost
| US$75k, but even today lead-acid batteries cost half what
| lithium-ion batteries do.
|
| I don't think the price of lead-acid batteries has changed that
| much over the last 25 or even 50 years, though admittedly I
| don't have any 30-year-old battery catalogs to check pricing
| in. Lithium-ion batteries in the 01990s would have weighed only
| a little more than lithium-ion batteries today, so it looks
| like they're using the pricing of lithium-ion batteries and the
| weight of lead-acid batteries.
|
| If you're powering your house from batteries, you should
| probably do it with lead-acid batteries, not lithium-ion
| batteries. The big disadvantage of lead-acid batteries is that
| they weigh roughly three times what lithium-ion batteries do
| (per joule), so lead-acid electric cars had roughly a third the
| range of lithium-ion electric cars. But the weight is not
| enough to matter for a house.
|
| There is enough lithium in Earth's crust to power the world
| economy through the night. There is, I think, not enough lead.
| So although lead is currently cheaper, lithium is more
| scalable. Other less developed candidate options include sodium
| batteries and aluminum fuel cells.
|
| Nickel-iron batteries might be even cheaper, though I'm not
| sure, and they're definitely more scalable. Nobody sells them
| anymore, though lots of telecom centers still run on them.
|
| It's unfortunate that the article cites a _power capacity_ ,
| "1.2 gigawatts-worth of storage", but not an _energy capacity_
| , for the US's utility-scale storage rampup last year. 1.2
| gigawatts for five minutes would be 100 MWh, in the quaint
| units used in the energy markets; 1.2 gigawatts for 12 hours
| would be 14'400 MWh. There is a very significant difference
| between these; one requires 144 times as much battery behind it
| than the other. By contrast, the difference between 100 MWh
| over 5 minutes (1.2 gigawatts) and 100 MWh over 12 hours (0.008
| gigawatts) is mostly a matter of what shape the batteries are
| and how much active cooling is needed. One wonders if this is
| not simply an error because the author did not know the
| difference between gigawatts and gigawatt-hours.
| [deleted]
| ffggvv wrote:
| so why should i buy an electric car now if batteries will be way
| better in a few years and mine will be obsolete with bad range?
| ec109685 wrote:
| If it meets your needs today and tomorrow, go for it!
| baybal2 wrote:
| FYI, the cost of individual cells has long, long gone below $100
| per kWh in wholesale volumes.
|
| And believe the cost of a pack itself is very quickly approaching
| $100/kWh as well if not crossed it already.
|
| Making batteries is still a rather profitable business with
| double digit margins, it's just latest equipment, and cathode
| materials became way more expensive, and hard to get than what
| small battery makers can afford.
|
| Despite China dominating the metallic cobalt supply chain, the
| cathode materials market are dominated by Japanese chemical
| companies, and I suspect some form of collusion is there.
|
| With cathode being the most expensive part of the lithium battery
| cell, it's hard to fathom how a free market price for it can be
| many times the cost of input materials for years on end.
| amelius wrote:
| > FYI, the cost of individual cells has long, long gone below
| $100 per kWh in wholesale volumes.
|
| Electric bicycle batteries are still $500 for 500Wh (consumer
| price, but 10x as expensive).
| jeffbee wrote:
| Wish I could find one that cheap. The Bosch PowerPack 500 is
| $900 retail and Specialized recently raised the price of the
| 600Wh pack in certain bikes to $1300. The price is so silly I
| pried open my obsolete Specialized pack and just replaced the
| cells myself.
| nickik wrote:
| Collusion is kind of a strong statement. There is a fair bit of
| competition, its not only China and only Japan, and in these
| places its not one company. There are cathode companies in
| Korea as well. There are also multiple cell manufactures in
| multiple countries.
|
| Tesla on battery day gave a pretty good exploitation of why the
| price is what it is, and they didn't say 'we need to solve this
| by trust busting'.
|
| Elon Musk basically said 'if you attach a GPS tracker to a
| nickel atom its journey would be crazy'. Many, many steps are
| involved. Many processes, that then need to be reprocessed, and
| reprocessed again, and reprocessed again with a lot of shipping
| in between.
|
| The problem is the industry was to small so far to really
| consolidate all these steps, localize production and mining.
| Rather many chemicals need are just bought in the form they
| were available from other industries, and then processed were
| built on top of that.
|
| This video is a pretty nice visualization of the current
| process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i1T6s_NdAQ
| StreamBright wrote:
| We just need a 100x increase in density and we are good to go.
| bdcravens wrote:
| Today I bought a new lawn mower, weed eater, and blower, all
| electric, with batteries, for less than $600 total (not even the
| cheapest models). They have comparable power to gas-driven
| models.
| Shivetya wrote:
| Just be sure when using a electric mower you opt for the higher
| amp batteries. They are also far more limited by wet or tall
| grass and heaven forbid trying both at once.
|
| Many push mowers will come with a 4amp or higher battery while
| blowers, weed eaters, and such, use 2 to 2.5amp battery. While
| the lower amp batteries can work in the mower they will heat up
| faster and may actually stop if the load they are put under
| ramps up too fast.
|
| Still even the cost of a 4amp or higher is well worth it to
| never have oil or gasoline in my garage. Just understand the
| limitations. I mow a little under 10k square feet which can
| require a recharge of one or both batteries depending on
| conditions.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I wonder how much there is left to reduce costs? 98% cost
| reduction for physical chemical products is pretty good. And many
| additional gains are likely increased complexity...
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| We need to go a _lot lower_. Prices are still high for retail
| investor. Was just quoted $16K for an LG 16kwh matter. That's
| $1k per kWh after installation costs. And a 16kwh battery
| doesn't even supply my house with 1 day of power.
| neolog wrote:
| Why are they measuring in kg instead of kWh?
| Retric wrote:
| Because the kWh is unchanged, but the weight and cost
| decreased.
| neolog wrote:
| Cost per what?
| Retric wrote:
| Cost per kWh and weight per kWh. But, also cost and weight
| per home as the home's energy needs are largely unchanged.
| neolog wrote:
| The graph that's interesting for homes is cost per kWh
| but the page doesn't show that.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| It doesn't seem too clickbaity. $73k/$75k = 97% (assuming the
| figures are correct). Knowing that the weight is reduced is
| good, because the weight determines where the batteries are
| useful; no matter how low the price per kW h goes, if the kW
| h/g is too low, the battery isn't going on a spaceship.
| supernova87a wrote:
| I'm pretty interested to know what parts of this cost have hit
| their practical limit, and which still have cost to be squeezed
| out?
|
| -- Mineral scarcity/cost of mining
|
| -- Cost of processing, refining lithium
|
| -- Cost of making battery chemical contents
|
| -- Cost of assembling rest of complete battery
|
| Any info on how much more advance there is to go on these
| aspects?
|
| And, after all that is squeezed out, is lithium still going to be
| the thing for 30 years?
| ghaff wrote:
| >is lithium still going to be the thing for 30 years
|
| The biggest thing I'm aware of that seems to be going on right
| now is trying to make Lithium metal batteries work at scale
|
| https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/the-smarter-grid/the-return...
| iknowstuff wrote:
| Some of this was answered during Tesla's battery day if you're
| into it.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6T9xIeZTds
| Fordec wrote:
| I think Lithium is one of the last issues with current battery
| tech when you compare the additives and support mechanisms for
| getting the energy out of the battery and into useful work.
| Cobalt cathodes, Rare earth metals in the magnets of motors,
| elements like Scandium in light weight alloys, Tantalum
| capacitors etc. have all _more_ eyebrow raising supply chains.
|
| There will come a point where the economics of Lithium will
| require looking at, definitely in the scale-up phase. That is
| probably under 30 years. But there's a lot of lower hanging
| fruit before the industry collectively properly get onto
| looking into direct battery chemistry alternatives like Sodium-
| Air.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| > -- Mineral scarcity/cost of mining
|
| It's one of the more common elements on earth. There is no
| scarcity. Just cost of extraction.
|
| > -- Cost of processing, refining lithium
|
| Generally dropping. Also batteries can be recycled after their
| decades of useful life. It's not an expended resource, unlike
| anything oil based. Otherwise economies of scale apply. It's
| getting cheaper.
|
| >-- Cost of making battery chemical contents
|
| Non zero. But they last long (decades) and you can recycle.
| Maybe compare to a gallon of diesel which you extract, refine,
| and transport at great cost. Then you burn it and lose the
| ability to recycle it. It's almost obscene how inefficient that
| is in comparison. So the answer is infinitely better than
| anything ICE.
|
| >-- Cost of assembling rest of complete battery
|
| Seriously?! I refer you to the latest production statistics of
| the likes of Tesla, VW, LG and a few other manufacturers that
| have failed to collapse during the recent economic crisis by
| virtue of doing a generally great job of growing their business
| in the middle of a global pandemic. Unlike some ICE
| manufacturers.
|
| Lithium might eventually be displaced by something better.
| Better as in even cheaper to harvest, manufacturer, package and
| leverage. The bar is pretty high at this point.
| Gravityloss wrote:
| Lithium is not scarce. There are other substances in current
| batteries that are more so. But I know a nickel mine that was
| founded on a new process and assumed high future prices that
| didn't work out. They had hard times. You can google
| Talvivaara. Mostly known as an environmental problem.
|
| Prospectors have found even better new nickel sources since.
| One is right below a 64 square kilometer nature preserve. After
| Talvivaara it's quite hard to get people to think it won't have
| large environmental impact.
|
| There's lots of materials around if you are willing to pay a
| price for the extraction. Does it make sense, to bet on high
| nickel prices for the next twenty years?
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| I also wonder how much work it is to recondition older battery
| packs.
|
| Weight and volume is really important for a car, but for a
| residential installation? Not so much.
| nickik wrote:
| I have looked into this quite a bit.
|
| Non of the materials in the battery are really scares. Building
| up the capacity both in terms of mining and refining will
| likely be slower then demand growth however, so in the next
| 5-10 years its hard to say raw material input prices coming
| down a huge amount. This effectively generates a lower bound in
| the mid term for battery prices.
|
| However, its not as bad as it sound. Depending on how you build
| your battery, the inputs are much cheaper. Iron Phosphate
| cathodes (LFP) are much, much cheaper. Manganese cathodes are
| also quite cheap and will be entering the market soonish.
| Cobalt has already been largely phased out, because it was to
| expensive.
|
| Beyond that, localization of mining can add a lot of value.
| Currently a nickel atom travels a long time before it end up in
| your driveway. So without actually improving mining, a lot of
| cost can be removed.
|
| There are however huge improvements to the chemical and the
| manufacturing aspects being made. Over the next decade the
| manufacturing of the cells will be so fast, that it will be a
| small part of the cost. Tesla I think is the most advanced in
| this right now, the assembly lines they presented are quite
| insane in terms of output per investment. And others are
| working on things like that too.
|
| There are huge inefficiency still in the chemical processing,
| both in terms of how it is done, and how much its transported.
|
| This video shows how the current cathode manufacturing works
| (from a company that wants to improve it but still):
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i1T6s_NdAQ
|
| Once you get all of those cost out, reaching as low as
| 30-40$/kwh is achievable even for a high nickel cathode, and
| significantly less for a LFP battery or Manganese heavy
| cathodes. Tesla Battery Day target is for 56$/kwh (educated
| guessing by people) for high nickel but that is for the next 5
| years.
|
| There is significant further upside potential even then.
| Eliminating transition free metals from the cathode would cut
| cost significantly if it could be replaced with much cheaper
| materials. This is very active target of research right now,
| including by a Tesla funded high-reputation university lab.
|
| Removing graphite and increasingly replacing it with silicon
| and eventually with nothing (using Lithium form the cathode to
| plate an anode) has a lot of potential as well to reduce cost.
|
| Once we are talking 20 years, Lithium Sulfer is a great
| candidate both for automotive and long distance planes. These
| batteries would be incredibly cheap because Sulfer is waste
| material now.
|
| Lithium is unlikely to go away anytime soon. There are
| potentially superior materials out there, but lithium has a lot
| of places to go still.
|
| You might want to watch:
|
| - The Limiting Factor (exactly about your question basically)
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIFn7ONIJHyC-lMnb7Fm_jw
|
| - EV Stock Channel (mostly about supply chain)
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMfEjqHQS4u8W5etV0uAG_A
|
| - Benchmark Minerals (lots of free contend and talks from
| companies in the supply chain)
| https://www.benchmarkminerals.com/
|
| - Cell Ciders podcast
| (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cell-
| siders/id15584413...)
|
| Also, consider watching Tesla Battery Day and pay attention to
| detail, they actually do a really great job explaining the
| costs and how to improve them in the next 2-7 years.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Ones which can be squeezed more
|
| > -- Cost of making battery chemical contents
|
| > -- Cost of assembling rest of complete battery
|
| Mining, and refining is pretty efficient at this point, even
| when Chinese dominate the market. It's cathode materials which
| is the single biggest cost point. Cathode materials are
| dominated by Japanese companies, especially nickel based ones.
|
| LFP is so cheap because making cathode powder for them is a
| fairly low-tech process with many Chinese garage scale chem
| companies jumping on it 10 years ago.
|
| Nickel based cathodes are on other hand fairly hard to make
| with competitive capacities because control of particle size,
| structure, and shape is a tightly held chemical black magic.
|
| For this reason, I don't expect the new generation of 200WH/kg+
| LFP cathodes to be that cheap in comparison to nickel ones.
| kragen wrote:
| https://archive.fo/OiXyO is lacking images; is there an
| alternative?
| harias wrote:
| This seems better:
| https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:FeVho1...
| kragen wrote:
| Thanks!
| spookthesunset wrote:
| It's remarkable what energy dense batteries have enabled. Drones
| and the entire quadcopter scene wouldn't be possible without
| them.
|
| Some maneuvers made on a 5" quad can pull more than 100 amps on a
| 6S, 22V battery. That is around 2,200 watts--more than most
| consumer microwave ovens! The fact that a battery weighing no
| more than half a kilogram can supply this much power almost
| instantly is truly remarkable.
| cbozeman wrote:
| Zero-Point Energy Modules when?
| aszantu wrote:
| lithium is just cheap because it wrecks some 3rd world countries
| natural resources. If they'd slap the price of recovery times it
| will need to regrow nature in that place, it wouldn't be as
| cheap.
| nickik wrote:
| This is mostly nonsense.
|
| The majority of lithium in battery comes from West Australia.
| Its fairly conventional hard rock mining.
|
| There are some environmental concerns in the production of
| lithium carbonate from evaporation ponds in deserts of South
| America. However to say that it 'wrecks' 3rd world countries
| natural resources is a bit of an odd statement.
|
| The only real issue is that evaporation ponds use water from
| underground aquifer. This is very salty mineral rich water and
| the water use is not as high as farming would be and there is a
| lot of these aquifers.
|
| In the future, as lithium consumption growth much of the growth
| will come from more hard rock mining in mostly first world
| countries, clay mining (unlimited amounts all over the world)
| and direct lithium extraction (gigantic amounts of extraditable
| lithium in aquifers all over the world) from aquifers where the
| water is pumped right back, just with half as much lithium in
| it.
|
| Evaporation ponds are basically a legacy technology and the
| boom in lithium will likely mean that they are gone be phased
| out over the next couple decades in favor of DLE.
| mavhc wrote:
| Which countries? In what way does it wreck them?
| seveneightn9ne wrote:
| Bolivia. The US-backed coup against Evo Morales may very well
| have been in part because of his intention to implement state
| control of lithium extraction, preventing foreign companies
| from ransacking the country's natural resource. https://www.h
| umanrightspulse.com/mastercontentblog/bolivian-...
| nickik wrote:
| You shouldn't believe every conspiracy theory you read.
|
| Basically one guy claimed lithium is the reason for a US
| backed coup. This is not proven and most expert don't
| believe this is true. Its neither proven that it was a US
| backed coup, and even if that was proven, lithium is very,
| very unlikely to be the reason.
|
| Lithium is not gold or oil, lithium is everywhere, the
| reason you produced in this region of South America is
| because it is cheap to let the sun do a lot of the work.
| But the reality is, its still more like a complex chemical,
| more then a metal. The technology to refine it and get it
| to the grade needed to be valuable, is very difficult, and
| the outlandish claims made by the president about the
| government doing all of this extremely advanced processing
| (and even build cars) were simply political BSing.
|
| It seems what is going on her is that a president made a
| lot of claims about the value of this resources, over-hyped
| its value and potential, and when opposed claimed lithium
| is the reason and its all the evil US fault. This is what I
| would call narrative building.
|
| Lithium projects are happening literally all over the
| world, the waste majority of expansion of supply is not
| happening in South America anymore. If Bolivia ever wants
| to make real money from this resources they need foreign
| company that have DLE technology do it and tax them. With
| DLE much less manual work is required so it will not be an
| industry that creates massive amounts of jobs.
|
| > salt flats that stretch across Chile, Argentina, and
| Bolivia and hold over 75%
|
| This is flat out false.
|
| > Bolivia's Salar de Uyuni salt flat alone holds an
| estimated 17% of lithium globally.
|
| Wrong.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| We would just scale up extraction from the ocean, lithium is
| very prevalent.
| [deleted]
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