Battery pack costs, cell costs

TEG · 05-16-2009, 03:01 PM

There has been much speculation and difference of opinion on the actual cost of a Tesla battery pack. At a cell level, retail prices for commodity 18650 cells can come down to around $4 each, so that would be ~$27K (6831*$4) just for the cells not counting all the other stuff that goes into an ESS "Battery box" but we assume Tesla gets a much better than retail deal on a per cell basis.

Comments about battery pack and cell prices have been scattered all over the place on this forum, so I thought I should start a new topic just for this subject.

Along with all the variance between wholesale and resale price (both for the cells, and the completed battery box), there have been discussions about the differences in prices between Tesla's Lithium-Cobalt "commodity laptop" cells and other types of Lithium-Iron-Phosphate batteries that have different characteristics but are also being used in EVs.

Note, Tesla says they use premium well known brand cells (although the particular manufacturer is not stated), but some of the costs comparisons are being made against upstart Chinese brands.

With all that said, here were some "bargain basement" prices seen on the net recently:
EVDL Archive / Forum Interface - Electric Vehicle Discussion List

Quote:

...The price available is $1.10 per Ah plus customs, container shipping, etc. Expect about 10% extra for those costs...

Quote:

...The SE 180 Ah cells are interesting because they have the same physical dimensions as the Thundersky 160 Ah cells but are more energy dense at 102 wh/kg and 159.48wh/l ...

EVDL Archive / Forum Interface - Electric Vehicle Discussion List

Much more in this thread:
Electric Vehicle Bashing WaPo

stopcrazypp · 05-16-2009, 07:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TEG

At a cell level, retail prices for commodity 18650 cells can come down to around $4 each, so that would be ~$27K (6831*$4) just for the cells not counting all the other stuff that goes into an ESS "Battery box" but we assume Tesla gets a much better than retail deal on a per cell basis.

Straubel's slides suggest the prices are between $2-3 (presumably direct bulk prices).
http://www.ostp.gov/galleries/PCAST/...l%20slides.pdf

The discussion here seems to confirm this, though it says $2 is for lower end 2000mah cells and that something like a 2600mah cell would be around $3. So $2.5-3/cell is probably a good estimate.
http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/pdf/...3/msg00015.pdf
The data seems to be from a presentation in 2008 International Battery Seminar in Florida with Hideo Takeshita presenting. Couldn't find a copy of the presentation though.

~$17-19k is what you get with $2.5-3/cell.
If they got it down to $2, it'll be ~$14k.

Less than $20k in cell cost would give them pretty good breathing room for a $30-36k (depending on which figure is more accurate) pack.

TEG · 05-16-2009, 07:52 PM

Great references, thanks!

James · 05-17-2009, 12:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TEG

With all that said, here were some "bargain basement" prices seen on the net recently:
EVDL Archive / Forum Interface - Electric Vehicle Discussion List

Quote:

Quote:
...The price available is $1.10 per Ah plus customs, container shipping, etc. Expect about 10% extra for those costs...

Quote:

Quote:
...The SE 180 Ah cells are interesting because they have the same physical dimensions as the Thundersky 160 Ah cells but are more energy dense at 102 wh/kg and 159.48wh/l ...

TEG, that is incredibly funny that you should quote those posts from EVDL.
That was my partner and he is quoting a bulk purchase of LiFePO4 batteries we organized with Thunder Sky and Sky Energy.

Here is our website with the prices listed.

www.evcomponents.com

We started a business recently (last month) to import these batteries in bulk by the container.
We sold about $250,000 in LiFePO4 batteries in about a month and basically took over the battery market within the custom EV conversion community.

We are already getting nasty emails from another website owner "Elite Power Solutions" that was selling the same Thunder Sky LiFePO4 batteries for $2.00 per Ah.
http://elitepowersolutions.com/produ...e07c46cefa3122

We are selling at $1.10.

.

JRP3 · 05-17-2009, 09:13 AM

I'm also in on the buy from James and Dave

Interesting that Elite power is emailing you guys complaining, since they are so over priced. I guess you guys didn't get the message among battery resellers to keep prices artificially high.

James · 05-17-2009, 09:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JRP3

I'm also in on the buy from James and Dave

Interesting that Elite power is emailing you guys complaining, since they are so over priced. I guess you guys didn't get the message among battery resellers to keep prices artificially high.

Not only that, the woman at Elite Power Solutions was trying to fix prices. If I posted her email, you would be shocked. She was suggesting that she would start a price war and the only people who win in that situation are customers. Then she started suggesting that we all set a minimum price to sell at, which was much higher than our $1.10 per Ah price.