SanDust said:
GRA said:
Obviously, these are averages. But AFAIA, all the main companies are buying battery cells but assembling the packs themselves, so they are incurring the assembly and installation costs (plus post-assembly testing?), plus they're paying the markup from their suppliers who have included their own costs, transportation costs etc. And since the battery cells plus the packs are the single most expensive component of the car, it's clear that any increase in pack cost will have an out-sized effect on MSRP. It may not be double, but it's going to be a very large increment.
The point being what? Of course a larger battery pack will increase the cost of manufacturing the car. That doesn't mean, however, that doubling the pack cost will also double all other costs. In fact the other costs won't change much if at all. If the steering column costs $50 for a car with a 20 kWh pack it's going to cost $50 for a car with a 40 kWh pack. The costs are simply unrelated.
This is so obvious I don't understand why anyone would question it. It likewise should be obvious that if you can sell a first generation BEV that goes 80 miles for $28K that you can build and sell a second generation BEV that goes 100 miles for $30K or one that goes 200 miles for $40K. The difference between a BEV that goes 80 miles and one that goes 100 miles is a mere 5 kWh. With cell costs dropping 8% a year in three years the larger pack of the next generation should be cheaper than the original smaller pack.
We agree that the 2nd gen should (IMO must) provide at least 100 miles EPA for $30k. However, at least 5 kWh is the required usable capacity increase; obviously you need to add more than 5 kWh total unless you have a battery chemistry that allows 100% usable SoC range without significant degradation. You need to add at least 6 kWh total to maintain a similar usable/total ratio to the LEAF's current battery, more in the case of a car like the Volt which uses a smaller proportion of the SoC. But if only the cost/kWh of the packs improves while leaving the energy density unchanged, as it appeared to me was being suggested (i.e. just adding more of the current batteries to boost the range), then you are incurring knock-on increases in weight which may require beefed up/changed suspension components, tires, maybe a more powerful, heavier and more expensive power steering pump and/or changes to the steering rack design (and possibly the steering column too), possibly a more powerful etc. main motor to maintain performance, a re-designed pack container and possibly cooling system, and the commensurate R&D/Engineering costs to design, integrate and test all of this, including crash tests, plus proportional overhead increases etc.
The LEAF's current battery pack weighs 680 lb. Adding 6kWh, assuming it scales linearly, will add another
170 lb. I personally think they should go to 32 kWh rather than 30 kWh for a '100 mile EPA range' to give more margin, which would boost the pack weight by 227 lb. rather than
170. Either way, that's like carrying an extra adult around all the time, before you add knock-on weight effects, so you either have to decrease the useful load or beef up the car to boost the GVWR to handle the same useful load.
While pack prices may decrease at an average of 6-8%/year, I don't think it's appropriate to say in X years the cost/kWh will be Y. Battery costs decrease in steps, not linearly, and it's difficult/impossible to say just when each step will occur. So, although I expect pack prices to decrease and consider this the #1 priority, we also need to see improvements in energy density or everyone will be driving small 3,500-4,000 lb. PEVs, barring the use of expensive Al/CFP to compensate ala the i3.
[Edited to correct math error: changed "165" to "170"]
