Hi all,

First let me say that I'm not a STEM student so my dissertation isn't going to be super technical and I'm still learning about battery chemistry and application.

I won't go into too much detail but for part of my research I plan to compare the current and projected costs of LIBs for different applications, EVs, BESS, and Smartphones of which there are three main/most used LIBs; LFP, LCO, and NMC. I came across Bloomberg's research which states

The price of lithium-ion battery packs has dropped 14% to a record low of $139/kWh

and

The industry continues to switch to the low-cost cathode chemistry known as lithium iron phosphate (LFP). These packs and cells had the lowest global weighted-average prices, at $130/kWh and $95/kWh, respectively. This is the first year that BNEF’s analysis found LFP average cell prices falling below $100/kWh. On average, LFP cells were 32% cheaper than lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NMC) cells in 2023.

I'm a little confused on what's being described here. The first part is general "lithium-ion battery packs" Does this term include all types of LIBs including LFP, LCO and NMC – would $139/kwh be an average cost of all types of LIBs? Can someone help me understand how this relates to the second paragraph that separates out price and type?

Also in the second paragraph obviously separates them out; LFP and NMC, but distinguishes between "packs" and "cells"

In addition to my other questions, can anyone give me suggestions on how to approach this in my research. If I'm doing a cost comparison should I be using packs or cells? and specific battery type costs, or general LIB costs. Thank you

Masters Dissertation cost of Lithium ion battery
byu/Livenlove28 inenergy



by Livenlove28

3 comments

  1. Just out of curiosity and with no offence, why is your master dissertation about a topic you know very little about?

    The article says the 139 $/kWh is a volume weighed average, so it considers all the technologies and the amount that it’s produced of each of them. The second paragraph separates them, showing that LFPs are the cheapest technology so far. China has dominated the LFP market, so that’s one extra reason why they are much cheaper on average, because the production in the USA and Europe is usually more expensive, but these 2 markets had been producing NMC or others but little LFP up to 2023.

    You should compare the cost of packs, which is the final product, the cell is just a component of it and it gives a lot of information but not the final cost.

  2. >Does this term include all types of LIBs including LFP, LCO and NMC – would $139/kwh be an average cost of all types of LIBs? 

    seems yes, and they do weighted average (not average price between types, but average between all sold batteries) as share of LFP was not high, though it grows (probably 20% of all batteries were LFP batteries as of time of the article writing) LFP cost has less effect on average pack price.

    packs and cells have different level of integration – packs consist of connected cells with addition with control modules etc, non connected cells cost cheaper.

    end user likely would use packs, not separate cells.

    also in China battery packs are already in ~$60 kWh range, so price now also depends on market.

    as a personal note: for me it looks like it is less useful to just project only lithium ion batteries, li-ion will dominate for at least a decade, but share of sodium ion and then semi solid and solid batteries will start to grow, apparently this will introduce quite a change in the picture of where which batteries are used. For example it might turn out that sodium ion will dominate storage market and some markets will completely transition from li-ion to semi solid and solid state batteries. But there is currently significant uncertainty about either price, future volumes of sales etc about these batteries.

  3. Battery prices are often described as “at the pack level” or “at the cell level” and as long as you specify what number you are using people don’t care.

    Cells are what comes out of a battery factory – they fit in your hand and you can buy them on ebay. [Packs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TXCM9_3SbM&t=55s) are lots of cells + everything you put around the cells to turn it into an automotive product: wires and fuses, inverters/rectifiers, thermal system, structural support, sensors, waterproofing, fireproofing.

    LFP is the cheapest chemistry in mass production today with an energy density of ~180Wh/kg. NMC is more expensive because nickel and cobalt are expensive, but has an energy density of ~250Wh/kg and can charge a bit faster. So if you see a low $/kWh its probably LFP. High $/kWh is probably NMC. A number in between is probably a weighted average. I think last year LFP had 40% of the global battery market and growing fast.

    __________________________________

    Some links that may help you:

    [RMI Cleantech Revolution, .pdf](https://rmi.org/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2024/06/RMI-Cleantech-Revolution-pdf.pdf) <- control + f battery

    [RMI, Rise of Batteries in 6 Graphs](https://rmi.org/the-rise-of-batteries-in-six-charts-and-not-too-many-numbers/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=spark&utm_content=spark&utm_campaign=2024_01_25&utm_term=title-1)

    [Lazard LCoE](https://www.lazard.com/media/xemfey0k/lazards-lcoeplus-june-2024-_vf.pdf) <- price of grid scale wind/solar + battery

    [EV and PHEV Global, 2013 – 2023](https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2024/trends-in-electric-cars)

    [Useful background knowledge to learn how batteries work](https://www.quantumscape.com/resources/blog)

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