LG : 40% desnser battery for half the price

[evnow]

This is an interesting discussion with Patil and Ann Sastry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc3nzup5XuM" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Patil says compared to '11 Volt, the next gen battery is
- 40% more dense
- half the price

This gives us about $250/kWh for the new cells - since he says packing is 30% of the pack cost - a total cost of $350/kWh. Patil had said a few years back that the '11 Volt cells were $500/kWh.

The new battery would be about 210 Wh/kg ('11 was 150 Wh/kg).

GM would need about $20k of battery (assuming 55kWh) to build their 200 mile BEV (which now needs a new name since their Bolt was suspended since it is taken).

If we assume similar pricing and density for Leaf 2, can the battery fit in Leaf ? A 50kWh battery will be about 25% larger than the current 24kWh battery.

 

[evnow]

Charged EVs interview with Patil.

http://chargedevs.com/features/lg-chem-power-ceo-were-the-li-ion-leader-for-pevs-because-of-material-science/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[RegGuheert]

Charged EVs interview with Patil.

http://chargedevs.com/features/lg-chem-power-ceo-were-the-li-ion-leader-for-pevs-because-of-material-science/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Excellent article! Thanks!

A couple of things are made clear in the article. First, as many of us have discussed, the Chevy Volt minimizes and hides degradation by limiting the range of SOC used initially and then gradually increases that as the battery degrades:

The Chevrolet Volt is a good example of how materials expertise plays a role. When we did the first generation, the goal was about 40 miles of electric range, and at 200 Wh/mile, that’s 8 kWh. But the installed capacity of the first generation is 16 kWh, because we allowed for 30% degradation over 10 years of life, and it only uses about 70% of the capacity window. If you put those two factors together, you get about 50%, so you start with 16 kWh of nominal capacity at the beginning of life.

But there is another aspect of this approach which I had not foreseen:

However, if through better materials engineering you can improve the battery’s capacity retention over life and the useful capacity window, without degrading the performance of the cell, then you have a way to reduce the cost of the battery simply by reducing the number of kWh you’re putting in at the beginning of life.

Conversely, if you keep the installed capacity the same it is possible to increase the *available* capacity (and range) of the vehicle faster than the actual capacity of the batteries is increasing.

This *partially* explains why Chevrolet has been able to increase the range of the Volt faster than Nissan has been able to increase the range of the LEAF. As we are all aware, Nissan had to work on the capacity-retention side of the equation for a couple of years, basically preventing them from increasing the capacity during that time. Given GM's approach on the Volt, improving *either* capacity *or* capacity retention results in more range for users.