Predictions are HARD. Especially about the future of batteries! but here we go anyway:
Yes there is a glossary of most of the acronyms buried somewhere down the page.
And remember this is not 'just' about cars.
The future of energy production and storage economics are also at stake...
Other Note, a year later: Global production of Lithium is around One Million Tonnes.
Lithium reserves in Nevada alone top 100 Million tonnes.
Lithium refining is now possible without toxic reagents nor significant excess water usage. First production plants using these processes are already being built.
We no longer regard any part of long life (20-25 yr.) LFP production to be North America 'resource constrained' with the possible exception of Graphite. All of the remaining constraints on building out a distributed-power electric future come down to Politics/Fiscal Policy and investment capital.
[FYI: we are lumping all of; NIMBY, Save the U.A.W., Save the Sage Grouse, Save the Indian Burial sites, Save the existing bureaucracy, under 'Politics' here.]
Note six months later: LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate, ie: No Nickel or Cobalt content) cells, in quantities of 50,000 are already down to around $70/kWh. That makes some of the arguments below even more compelling. Granted that is FOB in China. Tesla and others are near to making the same come true in the US factories. That sounds like a nifty 22% drop. Cool, huh! But don't forget the U.S. allows a $35 per KWh in tax credits, so that drop cuts the after tax cost of LFP cells IN HALF. This is going to get really interesting ... especially when they get the cost down below $50 in 2025 or 2026. What happens when the most expensive part of your car or home energy storage system has a net cost near Zero Dollars?
Boggles the mind. (subject to politics, obviously)
Way down at the bottom of this post*** you'll find an addendum about how the cost of LFP cells are declining over time. Hint: It's around 20% per year.. Translation: That's around $50/KWh by late-2024-25. Don't forget there's also a $10/KWh credit for cell integration into packs. So even someone like Tesla who are integrating CATL (China) LFP cells into the stationary battery 'Megapack' market see some gain from the credits. These also 'stack' so making your own cells and integrating them can see a total of $45. There have been many announcements from many players surrounding getting into this market. Only one that's actually executing so far.
Also of note (May'23) LFP batteries have improved to 180Wh/Kg, M3P have hit 210Wh/Kg. NCA are approaching 240Wh/Kg and the first production Sodium (instead of lithium) cells are around 150Wh/Kg and still improving. This stuff is getting better fast.
Be aware that these both M3P and LMFP add Manganese to the chemistry, which tends to reduce the life somewhat, but that may be a viable tradeoff (12 yrs. vs. 20 or whatever) for some folks, especially still with no nickel or cobalt content, assuming the price doesn't jump much.
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| * Late 2021 Estimates based on then current CATL/BYD/Tesla announcements. See Glossary below** |
From current (so to speak) events you might have, rightly IMHO, concluded:
"As go the Batteries, so goes the Nation"
based on the plans and statements of a President or two and a legislative body or two. U.S. China, Europe Etc.
This of course sounds like ridiculous hyperbolae. However, it's not unfair to say "Energy Independence -IS- independence." Just ask the several rulers of European countries that decided, 20 years ago, to rely on Russia for gas supply.
China has figured this out, and the U.S seems to have it kinda sorta in mind, some days of the week.
Since almost all of the oncoming reduced-climate-impact energy sources are electrical in nature, and very few of the uses can directly operate from intermittent sources (Wind, Waves, Solar) some sort of storage medium is required. Pumping water uphill to a reservoir, and heating sand (I kid you not) are potentially viable storage methods in some few situations, but most of it is going to come down to batteries.
Maybe Fusion will be come 'the thing' some day, but it always seems '20 years off.' Both Hydro and Nuclear are difficult to add, build and/or scale up. My prediction is that Wind and Solar, combined with Battery Storage (combined with some existing natural gas emergency generating capacity) are going to 'win' in most situations. Both Wind and Solar are now cheaper to implement than other generating processes. Battery based electrical storage facilities are already on line in Australia, California and Europe, replacing gas 'peaker' electrical generation plants for less than half the cost.
"But mining all those minerals for battery production is going to destroy the earth!!"
... as if the alternatives aren't already destroying the earth... ;-)
Most of the nay-sayers have some sort of vested interest in the status-quo. Once you get past all those political, labor, sunk-cost industries and NIMBY environmental/justice concerns, there are some really valid problems with scaling up materials and factory production processes to meet the kind of battery demand that is certainly coming.
However, a lot of this is at least partially based on outdated information and/or predictions. Many of which continue to be promoted because it serves the narrative purposes of the speaker.
Also keep in mind another point the nay-sayers aren't making note of: all EV production currently in process uses only 10% of current world wide Nickel production, there are alternatives for some of that 'other' 90%, and that Nickel will make up a declining percentage of the total average battery pack going forward (see below.)
Let's all go all over all that: [Edit] Also; There's a nice Youtube now.
While Sodium is becoming a significant component of the batteries we need, (there's some industrial-scale production in China, granted it's unproven and about half the energy-density) Lithium is the key and most voluminous element in all the battery types shown above. Lithium is a very common substance world-wide, and while the process of extracting and processing it does not have NO environmental consequences, the processes and methods for extracting it with relatively little (especially compared with the alternatives) environmental impact already exist. Now granted the costs of doing this responsibly are higher than strip-mining and washing all the waste products downstream with copious quantities of water, but they are VERY do-able with current technologies and at not-extreme cost. For some time to come the 'dirtiest' sources will remain the cheapest and everyone involved needs to keep an eye on that. Still, Lithium cost and availability seem like comparatively less difficult problems to solve.
The next two big concerns are Nickel and Cobalt. Cobalt for its scarcity, high cost, difficult (and dirty) processing/refining and the concerns surrounding justice for the workers in the countries where it's found.
Nickel has issues for many of the same reasons, especially the 'dirty' part, though it is MUCH more common than Cobalt. These would, IMHO, be almost 'show stopper' issues if there weren't good alternatives:
One thing that seems to get lost in all the outdated predictions and outcry and narratives above is that Less Than Half of current Tesla production of both electric vehicle and/or stationary (think power plant) batteries use ANY Cobalt or Nickel. OK so some nickel is used in car production, but very little and not in the batteries for nearly 55% of current Tesla car production volume.
Now that doesn't mean that GM and Ford and Nissan and Renault/Stellantis (and to some degree VW) are keeping up with this trend, they are, let's face it, much much slower to make changes, but the writing is on the wall and I don't think they're going to be able to ignore this (see below) over the long haul, despite the significant sums they have sunk into NMC based battery production.
EDIT: Just been informed that the GM Ultium chemistry is NMCA (added aluminum, 70% less Cobalt compared with the early Chevy Bolt batteries) so that's at least somewhat better going forward. More on that later. Ford has announced LFP plans, but nothing in production as yet as far as we know.
The remaining components of the batteries are less of a concern. Phosphates are a done deal, mostly from fertilizer manufacturing processes. Iron, Steel, Copper and maybe some Aluminum, Zink and Magnesium are already available in sufficient and relatively inexpensive quantities. The last big component is Graphite, which while largely sourced from China today, can be processed elsewhere with existing technologies. More of a short-term concern.
** Glossary. Now that it's scrolled up off the page, let's go over the table/graphic included above.
... Yes, we remain cruel AND unusual... ;-)
Unless noted they ALL contain Lithium salts, Copper, Steel and Graphite.
Which are all, at least relatively, available and low-ish cost.
The first high volume high capacity lithium batteries were of the NMC type (third column) and were used from 2010 onward in the Nissan Leaf and the Mitsubishi iMiev. I believe a variant of this is in the LG produced cells in the Chevy Bolt and that it forms the basis for the cells used by most GM, Ford, Stellantis and VW production. They're all looking at alternatives, but are right now (2022-23) wedded to high volumes of Nickel and Cobalt. (see GM/Ford edit above) This also forms the basis of most Cellphone and battery-based consumer electronics devices, although that (by mass) will pale in comparison with EV and Stationary Power uses.
The NCA Cell is almost exclusively in the high performance or long range Tesla and some GM vehicles. It has Aluminum as an added component and requires less nickel and cobalt. Slightly higher energy density and slightly better cycle life seem to be the other advantages with a somewhat higher risk of thermal runaway (burning up) as a trade off. Obviously they have, a million vehicles later, got that mostly under control. While this was in almost 100% of Tesla production in early 2019, it represents apparently less than 50% now. Tesla moves fast.
LFP and it's variants are arguably the up and coming new champion. It's components [Lithium, Iron(Fe), Phosphate] are considerably cheaper than the competition. The production processes are not significantly worse and it may prove cheaper to actually manufacture once that all gets shaken-out. Refining, transportation and local availability are less of an issue. It's much much less likely to catch on fire so not only does safety improve, but the weight and complexity of impact/fire suppression engineering is reduced. As an additional bonus, the better chemical stability results in a much longer life. Both in the number of cycles it can survive -and- the number of years it will live.
Yes, There's more!
The LFP cell LIKES to be charged up to 100% and discharged (almost) completely. Discharging below 2.5V/cell under load tends to destroy it, but they all have similar limitations. The NMC and NCA cells hate to be charged above 90%. Impacts cell life.
The big trade off with LFP cells has been reduced energy density, both by weight and volume. So it took about a 20% bigger battery to get the same range. In theory. However the packaging efficiencies and willingness to support a wider range of charge-states (the 90% thing) make up for some of this.
As a member of this planet, you might have considerable interest in a battery pack that can last a million miles. As management in a car manufacturer you're probably opposed to anything much longer than the 8 years you're required to support. Impacts sales, Don'tChaKnow. Point is, like everything else, there's competing priorities.
LMFP/M3P are LFP variants, included here because they're already in production (in China) and because they make up much of the difference between LFP and NMC without giving away most of the LFP advantages. These should eventually bring the LFP arm of the business up to parity.
LMFP has some manganese added to the mix to increase energy density. This tends to decrease cell life though, so much work is going into ameliorating that. CATL has their M3P variant with added Zink, Magnesium and/or Aluminum among other things. Other manufacturers are adding silicon to the anodes or using nanoparticle graphite or coatings... Point is there's lots going on in this space without even talking about sodium batteries or solid state batteries. Those have a real chance to impact actual product production and volume delivery next decade. LFP variants will impact deliveries this year.
LFP cells can be tweaked to have lower internal cell resistance than some NMC/NCA chemistries. Since this is directly proportional to the amount of heating that occurs during charge/discharge, this can end up being a significant advantage in packaging density and the complexity/costs of cooling solutions.
Results: Looked at from a geo-political perspective, China currently holds many of the cards in this game. They have been doing a good job of predicting what the requirements for this will be, and then 'command economy' style, making it happen. They have up to 80% of the refining capacity for some of the materials used in battery production right now, although they may not have completely seen the shift to LFP coming (they are the largest LFP manufacturing region right now though). Graphite is still a key despite the LFP shift.
They do not seem (right now) to be using this as much of a lever, but they are making it really easy for Tesla and VW and GM and others to move much of their car production there, about 90+% for GM and a bit under 50% for the others. This is why the recently enacted incentives in the U.S. are such a big deal. The legislation carefully excludes Chinese made cars and raw materials and refined materials from any of the incentives contained there-in. Everybody and their brother has since announced materials, mining and manufacturing plans in the U.S. and some of that is already in motion.
It seems unlikely that China will be able to resist turning the screws on this entirely. The example of Russia's success with energy monopoly gamesmanship won't be lost on them. We'll see if 'on-shoring' these processes can happen fast enough to keep that from being a big issue. The size of oncoming investments in that area would argue in favor, the extreme slowness due to permitting processes and NIMBY and lawyers would argue against. If course the more agile players (mostly read 'Tesla') are already shifting most production out of California and into Texas, TN, GA, Nevada and Ontario and weren't using China for most of the vehicles and stationary battery production they sell in the U.S. to begin with, having seen the writing on that wall early on.
Other stuff:
All that noise about how "EVs use more materials than ICE" has been debunked throughly.
Tesla and BYD (the second largest EV Manufacturer world wide) are both working on very high reliability battery packs (LFP anyone?) that they can bond together to become the base 'frame' of the vehicle. Tesla also has large single aluminum castings that bond on the front and the back of that pack which everything else (motor, drivetrain, suspension) connect to, leaving those three parts to replace about half the parts used in 'normal' vehicles. Talk about your killer manufacturing advantages.
LFP should completely take over the stationary/power-plant market within 2-3 years. U.S. and China will reach 80% LFP during 2023. The lower cost, lower maintenance (100% charging range) and three to four times the usable life are hard to compete with. Who cares if it's slightly larger and heavier. They're taking over the 'house size' battery market too. Sodium batteries may eventually take over this niche, but we're not nearly there yet.
Virtual power plants of connected cooperating houses with solar and a big house battery are becoming a big thing in a number of markets. As a result I'm not planning to invest in companies that put up or operate large gas power plants or transmission lines unless politics kills the alternatives.
The early stages of this are already in production using LFP cells from CATL of China and should fill out the latter stages of the 1.2 GigaWatt plant in Monterrey California (already partially on line).
Each of the shipping-container sized 'MegaPack' batteries now has about 4 megawatt-hours (4MWh) of storage capacity and an inverter that can supply 2MW+ of power, enough to keep 4000 homes going for a 'peak' hour -or- about 400 homes indefinitely. At somewhere a bit less than 2 million dollars each (in quantity), these MegaPacks don't seem cheap, but they've dropped in half (on a per-capacity basis) over the last five years and that curve shows no signs of flattening out (So each 1GWh=$500K now and ~$250K in late 2025). Even 5 years ago the MegaPacks were less than half as expensive to buy and install than a gas powered plant and take one quarter the time to get on-line. So now they're over 4X less expensive. Add to which they cost a tenth as much to operate!! completely ignoring the cost of gas to fuel those other plants!!
All of this is now being done with no Nickel, Cobalt or Nuclear materials and relatively little fossil fuels in the materials or production processes. This isn't pie-in-the-sky that fixes all our problems, but it does work, at least mostly, right now and at the very least cuts many of those problems in half - or better.
If you look up "Redwood Materials Co." you'll find that Lithium battery recycling is already a 'thing.'
It only makes sense: The recycling process, while technically difficult, yields raw materials for battery production at a much lower cost (and energy/environmental impact) than any alternatives. As batteries and battery production become more efficient over time, the 5% or so losses in the recycling processes is more than made-up-for by those improvements. A single NMC pack from last year yields enough Cobalt and Nickel for two or three NCA packs. We're rapidly approaching the point where EVs are MORE recyclable than Internal Combustion Engine (ICS) cars, not even mentioning all the fossil fuels they didn't burn up.
One other thing that doesn't get much press is that the total cost of charging infrastructure needs to include the cost of putting in and maintaining the space where the car parks during charging, the space to drive into that parking, street cutouts/driveways - etc. The costs surrounding putting this in vary wildly across the country: Land costs, grading, preparation, paving. curbing, lighting, landscaping, permits, taxes, yuck. In some cases you're just adding functionality to existing parking infrastructure. In other cases it's standalone. Including access, you're looking at about 1000 sq.ft. (approx 100 sq.m) and that probably costs somewhere between $10-20K plus maintenance. Like most things it doesn't scale in a completely linear manner. a 12 stall standalone charging setup is barely over twice the cost of a 4 stall installation as far as the 'parking lot' part of it goes in most situations. Since Tesla tends to put in larger (8 and up) sets of charging stalls they have yet another cost advantage, which to be fair, the other players are starting to catch up on.
Looking at the quotes the major players put out we can infer that they expect the non-parking equipment costs to total somewhere in the vicinity of $250K-400K per high capacity (150KW and up) charging stall. Presumably that includes the grid-tie, trenching, common electrical box and the actual charging station. People who have deconstructed Tesla's financial statements have put out estimates of $50-100K for their costs on the same. Once again it's Tesla in the lead, and the associated costs/benefits writ large. Something that 'just kinda happens' with lots of government 'help' may not be quite as efficient as a process that's designed from the ground up to work efficiently (and well!) as a system.
Notes:
Should this impact any buying decisions you're making now? As usual: It depends.
If you're only keeping a new vehicle for 3-5 years then it should make little difference. In fact the slightly longer range that's quoted to you might sway your buying decisions in favor of NMC/NCA.
If you're intending to keep it for longer, then you'll probably note that you should only plan to charge the NMC/NCA vehicle to 80% on a regular basis to improve the battery life, which brings it to the same 'day to day' range as an LFP pack that started with 20% less range, but which likes to be charged to 100% regularly.
In the U.S. it's actually more constrained than that. The only LFP based vehicles currently available (and even that depends on when and where they were manufactured) are the Tesla Standard Range RWD Model Y, and Model 3.
** Other notes from the chart. The original is over a year old. Some of the numbers are outdated. First remember this is per entire battery pack, all built up. Some costs on a per cell basis may be lower. Also the cycle life for NCA is probably more like 1400-1500, at least the way Tesla's battery management software enforces how it works. It is now a common expectation for NCA based Teslas to exceed 200,000 miles on the original battery pack. In part because Tesla updates the software 'over the air' when they learn something new.
Increases in range play into this as well. Early Nissan Leafs were lucky to get 60-80K miles out of a pack. Now that number is 150-200+K. Given that the packs now have two to three times as much capacity and that it therefore represents about the same number of full charges this isn't unexpected. Improvements in cell chemistry and battery management electronics also play a part, even for the older NMC based batteries. This also improves the number of years (ie: purely time based) a pack, and therefore the car, can reasonably last. That said, our 2012 iMiev still has 80% of it's original range ten years in, so how conservative the original engineering might have been plays a part (as does luck.)
Given how the major players are now building the pack into the frame, the time-period of the replaceable pack, never a really economically feasible proposition, can be considered to be pretty much 'over.'
The stuff in the second column is interpolations and guesses based on leaks, press releases and innuendo (but I repeat myself) and should be taken no more as gospel than the rest.
NMC/NCA cells are already at relatively high levels of production, as a result it will take 24-28 months for a cumulative doubling pr production. LFP cells are at a considerably lower (earlier in the process) rate of production, which means the doubling will occur in considerably less time, probably around 15-18 months. This implies that not only does LFP have a significant cost advantage now, but that cost advantage is accelerating!
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