Thursday, December 30, 2010

"Lithium-Ion Battery Prices: Moore's Law After All?"

Lifted in toto from Infectious Greed:
From Paul Sankey's much-cited update report on his "end of the oil age" thesis, the following graph is his take on a speedy decline in lithium-ion battery prices in the coming decade. Sankey argues that this will make all-electric cars are competitive sans subsidy by ... 2020.
Two points:
  1. 2020 is still a ways off.
  2. This is a mix of manufacturing efficiencies and technology improvements, not a newfound Moore's Law of batteries.
It's still interesting -- assuming climbing lithium prices don't blow the whole argument up.
lion-prices.png