Issue 3, 2022

Technological innovation vs. tightening raw material markets: falling battery costs put at risk

Abstract

The reduction of battery costs is a key enabler for an economically viable transition towards a climate-neutral society. Despite market analysts being concerned about rising raw material prices, across forecasting studies, battery costs are expected to decline in the future. Respective authors base their cost estimates on past material price developments and do not rely on explicit technology roadmaps. This study integrates both future material price expectations and cost reductions driven by technological innovation. Therefore, a roadmap is defined for automotive battery technology and its production process throughout 2030, based on market expectations and expert knowledge. This roadmap is translated into year-over-year cell cost by two engineering-based, bottom-up material and process cost models and, at current raw material prices, a decline from above 100 to around 70 $ kW h−1 in 2030 is forecasted. The simulation of analysts’ price expectations for critical materials reveals that this decline might significantly flatten or, in the most pessimistic case, vanish completely. A particularly high risk for cell cost is associated with the nickel price and consequently, implications for research and industry are outlined for its mitigation.

Graphical abstract: Technological innovation vs. tightening raw material markets: falling battery costs put at risk

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
11 נוב 2021
Accepted
21 ינו 2022
First published
24 ינו 2022
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Energy Adv., 2022,1, 136-145

Technological innovation vs. tightening raw material markets: falling battery costs put at risk

L. Mauler, X. Lou, F. Duffner and J. Leker, Energy Adv., 2022, 1, 136 DOI: 10.1039/D1YA00052G

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements