As costs continually come down through innovation and through scale, electric cars will be far cheaper to operate and maintain than ICE cars. It's just a matter of time now.
Japan Expects Automotive Li-ion Battery Costs to Halve in 1 Year
Mar 5, 2009 16:25
Kenichi Takata, Nikkei Monozukuri
The New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), an independent administrative institution in Japan, submitted March 3, 2009, the final draft of the "2008 Roadmap for the Development of Next Generation Automotive Battery Technology."
The draft was approved at the second meeting of the Roadmap Committee on the same day. After some details are corrected, it will be disclosed on NEDO's Website as early as in March 2009.
The roadmap covers the development of secondary batteries used in plug-in hybrid cars and electric cars, which are expected to play main roles as next generation vehicles, and is "based on the most detailed information currently available," according to NEDO. Performances and costs at present as well as those to be attained by 2010, 2015, 2020 and after 2030 are shown as target values.
According to the roadmap, Li-ion secondary batteries will lead the market until around 2030. The roadmap forecasts the development will be focused on two types of batteries, an output density-oriented type intended for plug-in hybrid and hybrid cars, and an energy density-oriented type for electric cars.
NEDO also analyzed battery cost (not a cell but a battery pack) as of March 2009. It estimates that the cost is about ¥200,000/kWh (approx US$2,016/kWh) for both types of batteries. In respect to output density-oriented batteries, the current energy density is 70Wh/kg, and the output density is 1,800W/kg. Meanwhile, for energy density-oriented batteries, the energy density is 100Wh/kg and the output density is 400W/kg.
According to the target values described in the roadmap, the energy density and output density of output density-oriented batteries will be improved to 70Wh/kg and 2,000W/kg, respectively, and their cost will be reduced by half to about ¥100,000/kWh in 2010. In respect to the energy density-oriented batteries, the energy density and output density are expected to improve to 100Wh/kg and 1,000W/kg, respectively, while the cost will be reduced to about ¥100,000/kWh.
For 2020, the goals are set at 200Wh/kg energy density, 2,500W/kg output density and ¥20,000/kWh for output density-oriented batteries, and 250Wh/kg energy density, 1,500W/kg output density and ¥20,000/kWh for energy density-oriented batteries.
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