Comment by rafaelmn
2 days ago
> On the other hand battery prices are dropping exponentially.
Are they ? I keep hearing this but in practice the price of an EV is still dominated by the battery pack and the movement in EV prices is anything but exponential. China started pushing out the affordable EVs but that's because they are using less efficient/cheaper chemistry and even with better packaging they are significantly less energy dense.
I've seen Toyota announce 1000 miles solid state battery - if battery tech was dropping exponentially that should be cheaper than ICE in a few years - I would take the opposite side of that bet.
Yes, they are: https://assets.bbhub.io/professional/sites/24/battery11.jpg
China's LFP battery packs, as of 2022, have a density of 160 Wh/kg [1], which matches the NMC battery pack in a Model Y from the same year [2] (Note: The Model Y battery pack was no doubt designed and built earlier given that it was already in a product). I.e. is isn't really the case that the batteries they are putting in are less efficient than the earlier iterations. Though you could have even high energy density batteries if you didn't switch to LFPs.
I'm not sure we are racing towards 1000 mile cars, because I'm not sure it's the case that there's a huge market for 1000 mile cars, and there's limits on density short of technological leaps that would make such vehicles heavy. I think we're rather more likely to see 600km cars just keep dropping in price instead.
[1] https://insideevs.com/news/576870/catl-third-generation-ctp-...
[2] https://www.batterydesign.net/2022-tesla-model-y-4680/