Auto Industry Aims to Slash Battery Costshttps://www.designnews.com/battery-materials/auto-industry-aims-slash-battery-costs"Costs of key battery materials have gone up, but the auto industry believes that a more affordable electric vehicle is on the horizon.
The cost of the battery’s key raw materials—lithium, nickel, and cobalt—have soared in the past three years. From the end of 2019 through March of this year, lithium carbonate jumped 670%, according to The Wall Street Journal. Similarly, cobalt tripled during that period and nickel (in part because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine) gained 85%. The result is that after years of falling prices, battery cell costs have gone back up since 2020.
It’s especially problematic for the two most popular types of lithium-ion chemistries—Tesla’s nickel cobalt aluminum oxide (NCA) and nickel manganese cobalt (NMC), both of which need all three of those raw materials. Today, the average pack cost for a lithium-ion battery is between $130/kWh and $140/kWh, which is considered too high for entry-level vehicles. At that price, even a small 60-kWh battery could cost $8,400.
Still, the auto industry is optimistic about the future of battery costs. Automakers and suppliers have identified a number of ways to cut costs. Those fall into two categories—short-term and long-term.
Short-Term Fix
The short-term solution, which involves eliminating nickel and cobalt, is already here. Automakers are making commitments to a chemistry known as lithium iron phosphate (LFP), which uses no nickel or cobalt. Tesla has said it will use LFP in all its standard-range vehicles, and Ford has announced it will employ LFP in Mustang Mach-Es sold in North America and in its electric F-150 Lightning truck in 2024. Electric truck maker Rivian Automotive Inc. has also said it plans to use LFP in its standard-range vehicles. General Motors and Volkswagen have said they are exploring the idea of employing LFP, as well."
Lithium iron phosphate, invented in 1997 by Nobel-Prize-winning scientist John Goodenough, was originally seen as a candidate for electrical grid storage. It was not seriously considered as a chemistry for electric cars because its energy levels were too low. But the idea of using it for electric cars has caught on in recent years, first in China, and now in the U.S. Its advantages are numerous: It replaces the nickel and cobalt in the conventional lithium-ion cathode with iron and phosphorous, both of which are cheap and easily available. Moreover, it is more durable, more stable, and safer than NMC or NCA. The big advantage, however, is cost. LFP is 30%-40% cheaper per kilowatt-hour than its competitors. The upshot is that it brings automakers closer to their longtime-goal of $100/kWh.
The factor preventing its across-the-board use, however, is its energy level. LFP offers about 30% less energy, which means that an electric vehicle with an NMC battery and a 240-mile range would drop down to about 170 miles with LFP. That’s why automakers are targeting it for standard-range, rather than long-range, electric vehicles. “If you don’t necessarily need hundreds of miles of range, LFP batteries are a great solution,” Abuelsamid said. “They’re cheaper, they last a lot longer, and they’re very safe. In a lot of commercial applications, we are seeing a shift to LFP.”
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