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Envision of China which bought the battery division that Nissan used for the Leaf plans to have a battery cost under 100 dollars per kilowatt hour by 2020 and half that in five years. If this does come to pass, this will not only change the auto world, but almost everything we touch. This will change the whole energy game form buildings, cars, tools and even planes if the weight stays the same. If one company can do this, I have no doubt we will have many other ways of improving batteries in the coming years. Also we will probably see smart batteries that use active electronics and processes within the battery itself that change the whole concept of how we even define batteries. Just like the semi/nanotech sector is advancing, many of these same technologies, strategies and evolutionary paths will be applied to energy storage in ways we haven't even imagined. This is just another part of the "Great Acceleration" that will touch every sector of technology, our lives and even government and social structures. If this battery technology has the cost, lifespan and performance claimed, this will be a true game changer. With plants in the US, Japan and the UK combined with the Enos IOT operating system they plan to be a very serious player in all aspects of energy. They are already the second largest wind turbine maker in China. Chinese wind turbine makers have committed major theft of German technology in the wind turbine areas. It's going to be a real race for Tesla maintained earlier this year they would reach this same goal by the end of this year. Just like semis, the race is on to lower costs and there can be little doubt with technologies yet to come and others processes to be discovered will lower prices even more and this does not take into account if there is a serious, unexpected discovery that changes the whole game.
Comments, thoughts and additions on this solicited
The Nissan battery technology is not so amazing, I mean look at the Nissan Leaf EV and its paltry 151 mile range, while on the other hand we have Tesla offering the Model S capable of 335 mile range. If you want to follow an EV battery leader, that would be Tesla, not Envision of China.
The Nissan battery technology is not so amazing, I mean look at the Nissan Leaf EV and its paltry 151 mile range, while on the other hand we have Tesla offering the Model S capable of 335 mile range. If you want to follow an EV battery leader, that would be Tesla, not Envision of China.
Dan, that's comparing apples to oranges due to the large price difference in the cars, much of which is the cost of the battery, this is why different versions of the same Tesla model vary in cost so much.
The whole point of the article is about driving down the cost of batteries in general for when they get to a critical cost/performance/life span ratio the number of uses will increase dramatically and impact everything from the power grid/production to everything that requires power.
The lifetime of Nissan batteries has been poor too, with much more drop during use than Tesla users have been logging. I saw reports of similar with Chinese batteries for EV. It appears that Panasonic is paying much more attention to quality.
There are changes coming, new insights into chemistry and construction which are likely to double the energy per kg in the next 5 years or so .. but all evidence is that engineering quality will remain necessary for full scale production.
