It looks like May 21st was "pick-on-Sid" day. ;-)
You are correct, numbers aside, that it is no small feat to reduce
the cost of the fuel cells to 1/100th of the current price. However,
neither Ballard nor Daimler see this as a major problem.
Considering that the fuel cells are all prototypes at this point,
a very significant part of the current cost is manual labour. I know
from my own business experience that the cost of producing the first
piece of any hi-tech hardware is astronomical. Once a final
prototype is approved, they can start on automated production
facilities.
From Daimler's comments, it also sounds like R&D costs are figured
into the current cost (reflected in the "how much does the first barrel of oil from a well cost, or the first oz of gold from a mine?"). R&D costs would also disappear when mass production begins. So getting down to 1/100th sounds worse than it really is.
Quick example: making a new circuit board. Initial costs include
design, layout, small scale production of prototypes, testing,
etc. all of which mean many hours worth of human labour costs.
For a product which they can sell for $30 in quantity, it took
maybe 100 man hours to develop. The prototype would then cost
100 * $30/hr. (probably more then $30/hr in reality, since these
are engineers), or $30,000 for labour costs ALONE. They get the
price down by a factor of 1000 as a matter of course.
Granted, Ballard's fuel cells would cost more than $30, but the
amount of human labour and R&D involved is also many times more
(I think they have spent more than 100 man hours to date....)
Garth. |
