Whooo Doogies, battery roundup!

 "Man, I thought you just beat the whole battery thing to death recently, what gives?"

Couple things: It' a fast changing field, and we haven't written an overview since As Go the Batteries, So Goes the Nation in Sept.2022 [which also contains a glossary].  One of the predictions in there is we might be at $50/KWh for LFP type Lithium batteries (at the cell level) by the end of 2024. There's doubt about making that one, at least by late '24, so some kind of update seems required. The competing Sodium Ion playbook is also clearer now and we have more information about alternate processes like solid state and/or Silicon (instead of Graphite) as a major cell component.
We'll also go into more about our previous thesis that it may not matter as much as you might think.

Do remain aware that "Great new awesome battery ideas that everyone should invest in" has been a regular meme since at least 1903 so one should rightly take the latest announcements with at least some small measure of skepticism. We strongly believe that Sodium Ion technologies will be in serious production by late 2026, if not exactly taking over, and Solid State batteries should be sorted out during '26-'27 and maybe production-worthy by 2028.
Also note that much of what's presented here is actually a condensed version of literally hours of material provided by The Limiting Factor YouTube channel. Jordan totally rocks. However, his level of detail and your level of required detail may differ, thus this post. Not that we're the soul of brevity ;-)

Edited excerpt from The Limiting Factor's posts. Click to expand.

* These are averages across the industry, from multiple sources, over time and reflect manufacturing costs and are generally at the pack level.

There are a whole series of these graphics, 2023, 2025, 2027(?), 2030 but since the extrapolation between them is roughly linear we only included two.
Also note that our previous post compared costs at the cell level, his projections are at the pack level, a better metric in our opinion, especially as applied to cars and electric-grid storage uses. Do keep in mind that the IRS bill in Congress allows $35/KWh in credits for cell production and another $10/KWh in credits for pack-level production, at least for U.S. battery manufacturing with content from trade partners. ...which goes aways toward explaining the rush to establish battery manufacturing in the USA, just as was intended. That 'So Goes the Nation' thing earlier was not complete hyperbole. 
So, the average 60KW car battery pack could see $2700 in direct subsidies to the manufacturer as they source, manufacture and package their own batteries.  ...subject, obviously to the winds of political change.
Aside: Don't pay attention to China being demonized for subsidizing their EV production. The U.S. and Europe do it too, though not as early nor as much.  And, remain aware that Ford, GM/Chevy and Tesla's ongoing LFP battery plans all depend, at least somewhat, on licenses from CATL of China.

OK so looking at the graphic there's a couple of obvious points. Batteries are going to get cheaper over time. High Nickel/Cobalt content cells will continue to beat the snot out of the other chemistries currently available for high performance/low weight applications, at significant (and environmental) cost.
The others will achieve rough parity with each other. Yes, one chemistry may be able to save you $900 on a full pack or last 30 years instead of 20 or fit into a just slightly smaller space. However, absent the marketing machine getting in your face about how their battery is 'The Best Ever' these are not gigantic differences on a "You MUST buy THIS car!" level. Also remember the IRS bill subsidies, they may remove that $900 difference, or be repealed by the next administration. We just don't know.

What might make a difference is oncoming technologies like Solid State Batteries (still probably based on Lithium) which might eventually gain you 2X on packaging density and maybe eventually on cost 

-or- (and?)  swapping graphite (the 'biggest' component in current batteries) for some sort of nano-scale silicon compound already gains 5X-10X in the lab, at a cost of Much reduced cycle life. Will either or both of these become the Next Big Thing? We can hope, but it's a better than even money bet that neither will be deployed at scale in five years. By 2028-2030? eh, maybe.

Safety: Oddly enough, while 'safety' is very important from the user's perspective, it's almost more important to the manufacturer of an EV. Yes you don't want to get a 'bad rep' for your cars catching on fire (just ask Chevy!) but a safer battery cell vastly reduces the amount, weight and cost of the measures you have to take when building the battery cells into a battery pack. You save bucks on every car you build.

If Lithium Iron (LFP) cells are say 2X-5X safer than 'regular' Lithium Ion cells (not exactly, but close) and say if Sodium cells were 2X safer than LFP than it stands to reason that the expense and weight of packaging them into a car, with reasonable safety margins, would be less. In all cases you're packing an enormous amount of energy around under your vehicle, hit it hard enough and arcing/burning may occur. Still, even the worst case is still WAY better than carrying around a tank of explosive liquid, er, gasoline.

Keep in mind that if you exclude all the 'manufacturing defect, replaced under warranty.' potential fire cases (Chevy again) then the odds of your EV burning down are already much less than gas cars. If you're not worried about your gas car burning, then you should be even less worried about your next EV.
...well, until the media get's ahold of it and blasts Fear, Uncertanty and Doubt in your face to sell their product/your attention.

Why It Doesn't Matter: Ah, finally the meat of the matter, er, post.

     "How can you say that, especially after going on and on about the differences?"

As economies of scale get rev'd-up, materials sources come online and the odd subsidy or two are applied, cost parity with fossil fuel vehicles will not only happen, it is already here.  

The average gas car is now over $40,000. EV's from Nissan, GM and Tesla are already under $40K -WITHOUT- rebates/subsidies. Chevy and Nissan have models under $30K before subsidies. Tesla's small SUV, the Model Y (currently the most popular car in the world by unit sales volume) will be under that ($40K) line within months.

     "But you can get a cheap basic gas car for under $25K!"

And, with the Federal point of sale credit the basic Chevy (or Nissan?)  is $23K (yes, assumes fed.credit, which you don't have to pay back even if you don't make enough to generate that much tax liability) 

And yes, that credit will go away.

That same credit makes a Model Y cost $36K. Yes, there are fancier 4WD big battery versions of that which cost more, but 'more' in this case is right at the current average selling price for gas cars in the U.S.

So the point is that all those giant expenses that used to make battery electric cars cost 50% more and be 'lunatic fringe' players are already gone. That part of the story is pretty much over, though you couldn't tell it from major media outlets. The battle now over which battery is better or which motor is better or which lasts longer or which costs $500 less to produce, well, that's all fiddling around in the margins. Yes the car that costs $4000 more will last 15 years rather than 12, or go 40 miles further between 'fill-ups' but that's all minor 'product line differentiation' that car manufacturers have been selling for over 100 years. All the major players in the U.S have agreed to use the same charging standard going forward, (NACS, the Tesla charging connector ) so that's not going to be a big selling point either.

Some countries are already approaching a 50% adoption rate for EVs.  Not the U.S.   Duh.
We're not saying that the battles are over, they obviously are not, but the battle is not 'does it work' it's now public perceptions and protectionism and clueless politics. It's highly probable that Ford and GM will need bailouts (or rescue from bankruptcy) before 2030 'cause no way will they win on a level playing field. If the Chinese are let in, even indirectly via Mexico or Canada, well, they are already really good at producing reliable EVs for -well- under $20K.

The other 'next battle' is also pretty much won, although few seem to realize it. The competition isn't even a little bit close. Will Ford will announce that they're licensing Tesla's Full Self Driving (FSD) technology stack? (or more likely: do it quietly) If so, GM will probably follow suit. With no viable competitor they aren't going to have many options. Having just done the deal to get access to 15,000 Tesla fast charging stations, and Tesla having been very careful to be scrupulously fair on those deals, Ford and GM are unlikely to put up a big fight, but that deal is far from done. A whole lotta things could go wrong. Elon seems adept at messing things up so this is very much 'up in the air.'
Since Congress Critters will almost certainly find some way to keep access to that technology away from the Chinese it may be the only real selling point difference they have available.

May you live in interesting times... ;-)