Remember hows gasmobiles were a luxury item until the Ford Model T came along? No? Well anyways, electric vehicles are closing in on a similar tipping point. The sticking point is the cost of an EV battery, which remains stubbornly high compared to, say, the cost of a gas tank. That’s about to change, and the US Energy Department has the lowdown on new energy storage technology that will help vault EVs into the affordable mainstream.
Energy Storage & Electric Vehicles
To be clear, comparing the cost of energy storage technology with the cost of an empty gas tank does not provide a full picture of the true cost of owning an electric vehicle.
Back in 2013, Edmunds took a look at the Chevy Volt and found that the true cost of ownership over five years — including fuel and maintenance as well as the price of the vehicle — shaved thousands off the retail price compared to a gasmobile.
That’s partly because EV fuel is less expensive, especially if you play your EV charging card right.
The other part of the cost-cutting equation is maintenance and repair, because electric drive requires less of that compared to gasmobiles (the Volt has a gas tank but runs on electric drive).
Depending on the manufacturer, adding resale value to the equation can also bring the five-year cost of EV ownership down to parity — or better — with a gasmobile. One recent study compared a Tesla model 3 to a Toyota Camry and guess who came out on top?
Three EV Energy Storage Technologies To Watch…
With the true cost of ownership in mind, let’s take a look at the four emerging battery technologies that the Energy Department is eyeballing.
Gerbrand Ceder, a battery researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, provided a rundown on them last week.
For starters, he favors replacing the cobalt and nickel currently used in lithium-ion batteries with iron or manganese.
Aside from the potential for reducing costs, eliminating cobalt would free the EV supply chain from human rights issues associated with cobalt mining in some parts of the world.
Ceder foresees that technology hitting the shelves in about five or six years.
Solid-state is another type of technology that could launch into the market in about five years. Rather than using a flammable liquid electrolyte, these batteries are based on a solid, inflammable material.
That safety advantage would help lower costs, by eliminating the need to engineer extra systems into the battery. Cutting out the extra systems will also help improve battery range, by reducing weight and leaving more space for the energy storage components (to be clear, modern lithium-ion batteries have proven to be safe when properly engineered).
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