The price of batteries for electric and hybrid vehicles will ‘tumble’ over the next decade to the point where alternative powertrains will be as cheap as internal combustion engines, a leading battery maker said at the Reuters Auto Summit this week.
According to Reuters, Prabhakar Patil, the chief executive of LG Chem unit Compact Power reports that the price for lithium ion batteries has already fallen by a factor of 14 since the technology was first commercially introduced in the early 1990s.
That price tumble will continue Patil told the summit, as the car industry begins to become the biggest user of the technology, overtaking the electronics industry.
"It’s been on a pretty steep cost curve and I think we will continue to see costs going down, in fact my internal target is getting it down by a factor of 2 to 4 over the next five to 10 years," Patil said.
"Vehicles have a huge leverage because of the size of the pack and so we project that by 2020, vehicle usage will account for at least half of lithium ion use — which means it will have a significant impact on driving down the cost."
Compact Power supplies the batteries used in the range-extended Chevrolet Volt (also known as the Opel/Vauxhall Ampera) launched in the US next month, which is capable of an all-electric drive for up to 40 miles.
Parent firm LG Chem said earlier this month that it expected to secure more battery orders for the Volt in 2011 than first projected thanks to higher-than-expected demand for the car.
Patil said he expects electric vehicles to account for about 5 per cent of US car sales in 2020, while this market share will increase as more carmakers launch hybrid and electric cars.
