[HN Gopher] The price of batteries has declined by 97% in the la... ___________________________________________________________________ The price of batteries has declined by 97% in the last three decades Author : infodocket Score : 133 points Date : 2021-06-07 21:06 UTC (1 hours ago) (HTM) web link (ourworldindata.org) (TXT) w3m dump (ourworldindata.org) | halotrope wrote: | This is nothing short of remarkable. Now lets hope that inflation | does not make them 97% more expensive again. | ceejayoz wrote: | We've had inflation during the entire three decades this | decline took place over. | JohnJamesRambo wrote: | We've had inflation yes, but what about second inflation? | [deleted] | halotrope wrote: | Check out lumber | ceejayoz wrote: | A short term supply shock in one unrelated item seems | unlikely to change the trend in battery prices. | bananabreakfast wrote: | That's not inflation. Inflation doesn't just affect a | single commodity, it affects all commodities. | stevejb wrote: | I just bought a 12v 200ah battery for $2300 AUD. It could be done | for less, but this was a premium model. Hopefully when I purchase | a second one in a year or two, it will be a bit cheaper. | megablast wrote: | Ive seen them on ebay for $850. Seem premium too. From a | company that has been around for 12 years. | | I wanted to get one for my boat, but they are the wrong size. | They seem to make them longer, instead of wider, so can't drop | in replace the 2x100ah I have now. | quickthrower2 wrote: | What's the application? Sounds like the capacity of a standard | $200 (yes AUD) car battery. I guess you want to hold onto that | energy for a long time? | CameronNemo wrote: | Lead acid batteries can emit fumes, so they are not useful in | the same settings as li-ion batteries. | zabzonk wrote: | Aren't most lead-acid batteries sealed? The one in my | mobility scooter certainly is. | quickthrowman wrote: | I've been buying 18650 cells for 6 years and they're always the | same price _shrug_ | colechristensen wrote: | Has the capacity gone up? | cm2187 wrote: | That's not the price of batteries in general, that's the price of | Li-Ion batteries. Were Li-Ion batteries mass produced in 1991? | reportingsjr wrote: | The first commercial/mass produced lithium ion batteries came | out in exactly 1991 as a matter of fact! They were used in a | Sony camera. | HarryHirsch wrote: | They were not. In 1998, the second edition of | Greenwood/Earnshaw's chemistry textbook came out, a magisterial | survey of inorganic chemistry. They state that the major use | for lithium is in lithium grease, but "looking to the future, | Li/FeSx battery systems are emerging as a potentially viable | energy storage system ... and a ... source of power for | electric cars". The 1991 edition did not talk about batteries | at all. | xkjkls wrote: | There's a graph there on market size, which shows the market | size has grown 50,000x since 91. | colechristensen wrote: | This is a sort of meaningless metric, you can adjust your | time frame to make the market size arbitrarily small because | it was 0 before 1991. | elihu wrote: | The other commenter says that they were first introduced as a | commercial product in 1991. | | According to Wikipedia, they were preceded by two years by the | first commercially-available nickel-metal hydride cells in | 1989, so that would be an interesting point of comparison. Also | nickel-cadmium and lead-acid have been around for a very long | time. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel%E2%80%93metal_hydride_b... | stormbrew wrote: | I remember a lot of stuff having NiMH for a long time | throughout the 90s, seemed like it took LiIon a lot longer to | catch on. | sanj wrote: | This is very close to 10% per year. | dukeofdoom wrote: | Thanks to all the lonely women out there. Mass producing good | vibrations has gotten cheaper. | squarefoot wrote: | Although Li-Ion cells are getting cheaper and cheaper every year, | it still is worth salvaging the good ones from depleted laptop | battery packs. When a laptop battery pack is gone it's almost | always the case of one, max two, 18650 elements that failed, not | the whole pack. I've built some good power banks using empty | shells (very cheap on Ebay, Aliexpress etc.) and fitting inside | the good cells salvaged that way. They last just like new ones | once one discards the bad ones. The only caveat is that cells | taken from laptop battery packs are not individually protected, | that is, they don't employ the small pcb containing a protection | against excessive charge, discharge, temperature, short circuit, | etc. because the needed circuitry is already contained in the | laptop battery pack. Power bank shells do indeed contain such | protection, so no problems, but care must be taken into | insulating the cells contacts so they cannot short, and before | fitting them the user must charge each of them to a known | identical voltage, so that once they're put in parallel | (remember: no individual protection) the strongest ones won't | discharge their energy on weaker ones. | orhmeh09 wrote: | Does this require special knowledge and experience? I would be | afraid to try it myself as I suspect that I or my devices would | be harmed, either in the process or later on. | squarefoot wrote: | Yes, it does. It's not rocket science, but one must know what | he is doing, and as with everything that can become really | dangerous, it is better to err on the side of safety. | | To my knowledge, this is the best informational site around | regarding various battery technologies (including Lithium), | and how to use them safely. | | https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/ | quickthrower2 wrote: | Does this come with a "know what you are doing" caveat? I'd be | scared of creating an electric firelighter in the process. | | Also assuming money is no object. Is it as good for the | environment to recycle the old battery and buy a refurbed one. | Syonyk wrote: | > _Does this come with a "know what you are doing" caveat?_ | | Yes, and I'll suggest that a disturbingly large fraction of | the people doing this on YouTube don't know what they're | doing, and are being brutally unsafe with the batteries, even | if it works. | | I've done battery pack rebuilding semi-professionally for a | few years (I was rebuilding ebike packs for most of North | America from about 2015 to 2018), and the people screwing | around with the used/recycled cells scare the hell out of me. | In no particular order: | | * They don't care to invest in a spot welder and they solder | directly to the terminals. Every datasheet out there for | 18650s that mentions soldering says the same thing: "DO NOT | solder directly to our terminals." You spot weld a strip on | and then solder to that. Soldering to the terminal puts a ton | of heat into the end of the battery which then flows into the | cell windings. The separator is usually plastic. You really | don't want to weaken it. With a spot welder, I can put my | finger on the terminal immediately after spot welding, and I | can spread out the welds in time. If I want three welds (six | spots) on a terminal, I can do one weld on each cell, then | come back for the rest, and keep the temperature "comfortable | to a fingertip." I cannot do that soldering. | | * They tend to take a single snapshot of cell capacity, | _maybe_ internal resistance, and then assign cells that way. | Unless they organize them by wrapper color for aesthetics, | ignoring the cell capacity and behaviors. Some cell | chemistries will degrade far faster than others, and you 'd | ideally like to not have a mess of stuff in the same pack. | | * They recharge dead cells with no idea how long they've been | dead. Lithium cells are physically stressed at full charge | and fully empty, and a cell that has been empty for a while | may have very real internal physical damage, such that it | will fail later. I won't charge anything under 2.5V unless I | know _exactly_ how and when it got there, and if it 's much | below 2.0V, I still won't put voltage to it. The risk of a | lithium battery runaway and fire is too high for my tastes. | Lithium battery runaways, beyond lighting stuff on fire, tend | to emit things like HF, which you very definitely don't want | to breathe. It doesn't hurt a bit while it's killing you, | because it destroys the nerves first. Health-wise, you're | actually better off if the battery venting is flaming, | because the mixture of gases coming off that is somewhat less | toxic. Again, it depends on the particular chemistry what you | get. It's never anything friendly. | | Unfortunately, "recycling" lithium batteries isn't really | established yet, and most of what seems to pass for | "recycling" is the cells getting shipped to China, having new | ends put on to hide the spot welds, and then getting a shiny | wrapper and sold with impossible capacities to vapers for | $0.75 or something silly. The highest capacity 18650s are | around 3600-3800mAh, and don't source an awful lot of amps in | the deal. Anything claiming higher (again, in the 18650 form | factor) is certainly a lie. | | You can do it, if you're careful, but by the time you've | properly characterized the batteries, I'm not convinced it's | worth the time/effort. Those who claim it is tend to skip a | lot of checks and be really, really casual with their packs. | To their credit, they rarely catch fire, but the whole "DIY | Powerwall" crowd using scavenged and abused cells is not a | good example to follow. | strbean wrote: | I replied with some questions about the safety of this, as I | had some concerns when reading it. | | Aside from the issue I mentioned in reply, the only real | caveat would be "know the basics of working with electronics | without shorting things or electrocuting yourself" and "check | out some youtube videos on rebuilding 18650 packs so you | don't do it in a horribly wrong way". | Syonyk wrote: | > _" check out some youtube videos on rebuilding 18650 | packs so you don't do it in a horribly wrong way"._ | | Bad idea, because about 90% of what they do is fine, and | 10% is very, very wrong. Unless you know what you're doing, | it's almost impossible to tell which is which. | strbean wrote: | Fair enough. I haven't seen any of the 10%, but I'm sure | they're out there. As an alternative to saying "go find | info", how's this: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KDiecphUk8 ? | | I just gave it a quick skip through, but the guy seems to | know the correct approach. | Syonyk wrote: | If someone on YouTube is soldering directly to terminals, | in any form, they're badly wrong and I wouldn't trust the | rest of their judgement. | | I'm not going to evaluate someone's YouTube video on | battery repair, sorry. There's no way I can "skip through | it" and have any sense of what they're doing, and I | generally try to avoid YouTube as a source of | information. You'll find far better material on Endless | Sphere, though there are plenty of dangerous ideas there. | squarefoot wrote: | Yes, sorry for not stressing this enough: extra care must be | taken when dealing with Lithium cells. They pack a lot of | power in a small space, and can be extremely dangerous if | mistreated; even physical damage with no heat involved can | turn them into fireworks, so always treat them the right way. | Never ever short them or apply excessive charge or discharge, | use only good quality chargers and never ever let them | unsupervised during charge. If a cell catches fire | accidentally, don't attempt to extinguish it with water or | sand as they are 100% ineffective, keep a specific safety | container for Lithium cells at hand and if you feel you can | can fit the cell into it to contain the fire _in a bunch of | seconds_ hold your breath and do it, otherwise get the f out | of there because the fumes are extremely toxic and would | seriously harm you before even getting a burn. | Syonyk wrote: | > _... because the fumes are extremely toxic and would | seriously harm you before even getting a burn._ | | I mentioned it elsewhere, but | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrofluoric_acid_burn is a | very relevant read on the nature of "toxic." Most of the | rest of the stuff isn't much friendlier. | analog31 wrote: | Do you know a good source of info on how to test these cells? | strbean wrote: | I was under the impression that mixing and matching cells (by | model or by age/number of charge cycles used) can be sketchy. | For example, if you have a very heavily used battery in series | with new battery, everything may look okay externally, but you | may end up over-discharging the older battery. | | What are your thoughts on this? Haven't had any issues? Or do | you take steps to mitigate it? | ed25519FUUU wrote: | Match them based on internal resistance and capacity after | running some tests. Most people don't even really bother with | the resistance. | Syonyk wrote: | You'd be far better off matching them based on percent of | original capacity and internal resistance. A 3200mAh cell | worn to 2600mAh is in far worse shape than a 2800mAh cell | worn to 2600mAh, though you'd probably also see a big | difference in internal resistance between them. You might | also consider checking IR at various states of charge, if | you're being comprehensive. | | ... and at that point, short of massive automation in a | fireproof area, you're almost certainly going to come out | ahead buying new cells. | danhor wrote: | Since he mostly talked about having them in parallel, this | might not be an issue for him. I also _think_ a bms can solve | that issue | squarefoot wrote: | Yes, I can confirm. I use them only in parallel, and they | usually come from the same battery pack. A series | connection would require extra care to select them for | identical characteristics, and the use of a BMS to keep | them balanced, avoiding the strongest ones to discharge at | reversed polarity through the weakest ones, which would be | a recipe for disasters. BMS circuits however can't do | miracles; too different cells shouldn't be used together | anyway. | graton wrote: | I don't think this applies to Duracell or Energizer alkaline | batteries unfortunately :( | | Of course reading the article they are talking about Lithium Ion | batteries. | blibble wrote: | you're paying for the brand, shelf position and other | advertising | | cheap and reputable supermarket brand ones last just long | fspeech wrote: | GP meant price for alkaline batteries did not come down. | | Another point to consider is if you leave the alkaline | battery in for too long will the chemical leak and ruin your | device? The damage to your device from a broken battery could | easily exceed the cost differential. I don't have solid | evidence that brand names work better in this regard but I | have definitely experienced repeatedly generic batteries | having white corrosive crystaline stuff formed all around | them. | lostapathy wrote: | People should quit buying alkaline batteries anyway. NiMH | batteries are great for just about every application you'd | use a throway for, and you only have to recharge them about | twice to "get your money back." | adventured wrote: | No question. Same thing you see in the generic pain relief | aisle (ibuprofen, acetaminophen, et al), and many common | grocery items. | | 10 pack of AA Rayovac batteries at Walmart: $3.20 | | Eight pack of AA Duracell: $7.47 | | Pretty ridiculous. For $7.78 you can get a 24 pack of ACDelco | AA batteries (granted I don't know how that brand stands up | on quality). | Dylan16807 wrote: | Looking at a couple stores, the difference is around 50 cents | per AA vs. 70 cents per AA at moderate pack sizes. That's | good in comparison but it's about the same price it was a | decade ago. Even comparing to 1990, when "alkaline" wasn't | yet the default, they were about the same price. "Alkaline: | These cost about $2 to $3 a pair for C or D flashlight cells, | and about half that for the AA and smaller AAA penlight | batteries." | | At best you can say they've dropped along with inflation, | which is a factor of 2. | jl6 wrote: | How do you tell the difference between a battery brand that | is more expensive because the battery has greater capacity | ("heavy duty", "extra long life", etc.) and a brand that is | more expensive because of the brand name? Last time I looked | in the supermarket there were no comparable metrics printed | on the packaging. | buescher wrote: | You can't, and you don't know who is private labeling what, | either. If you can get a data sheet, the better companies | have more detailed data sheets. | | Personally, I like the Energizer (primary, i.e. disposable) | lithiums for nice things like my old HP logic dart that | will sit in a drawer for a long time between uses, and | Panasonic (formerly Sanyo) Eneloop NiMH batteries for most | other things, and the cheapo Costco batteries for when I | really don't care. | | The three major US brands of alkaline batteries all have | warranties for corrosion damage. I don't know of any other | brands that do. I have seen corrosion in every brand of | alkaline battery I've ever bought but have never tried to | collect on any warranty. | | "Energizer will repair or replace, at our option, any | device damaged by leakage from Energizer MAX(r) Alkaline | batteries either during the life of the battery or within | two years following the full use of the battery." | https://www.energizer.com/about-batteries/battery-leakage | | "Duracell guarantees its batteries against defects in | materials and workmanship. Should any device be damaged due | to a battery defect, we will repair or replace it at our | option." https://www.duracell.com/en-ca/technology/battery- | care-use-a... | | "In the unlikely event of alkaline battery leakage, any | battery operated device that is damaged by RAYOVAC(r) | Alkaline Batteries will be repaired, replaced or refunded, | at our option, as long as the batteries have not expired or | been mixed by expiry date and/or battery type." | http://www.rayovac.com/support/warranties-and- | guarantees.asp... | tamaharbor wrote: | I used to get free batteries (size of my choice, I always chose | the more expensive rectangular 9v ones) as an official member | of the Radio Shack Battery of the Month Club. | stevesimmons wrote: | Ah what memories. Tandy Radio Shack in Australia operated the | same "Battery of the Month" club in the mid 1980s. | | I always got the 9V too, which I used for my "150 in 1" | electronics kit. | oh_sigh wrote: | I would just buy some Panasonic eneloops(NiMH - not an ad, just | the battery I have went with after researching this quite a | bit) whenever you need to buy alkaline batteries. They are | about twice as expensive but are rechargeable 2000+ times, hold | their charge for over a year, and don't degrade very much. | Eventually all of your devices will have eneloops in them and | you will stop buying batteries altogeher. | summm wrote: | NiMH have 1.2v instead of 1.5. That ist sometimes a problem | for cheaper devices that don't have a good voltage regulator. | For example Flashlights are notably dimmer. | aendruk wrote: | > unfortunately | | Sounds good to me. Single-use, landfill bound products | typically shouldn't be as inexpensive to the consumer as we're | used to. | retrac wrote: | It's not nearly as dramatic. But they've surely gotten cheaper. | As evidenced by how they have displaced carbon-zinc cells in | almost all applications. | | I checked Radio-Shack's 1981 US catalogue. $2.79 for a 4 pk of | store-brand AA alkaline cells. That's $8.20 or so today. You | can today, apparently get an 8 pk of Duracell from Wal-Mart at | $7.50. Or an 8 pk of store brand from Wal-Mart for $3.20. | [deleted] | oblio wrote: | This is really cool, but could anyone familiar with the domain | estimate how far we are along the S-curve? | | I.e. it took a long time for things to ramp up, then they | accelerate really quickly and then they slow down again. Think | Moore's Law, which is dead now. | | What would be the price estimate for 2030, for example. I think | we're now around $100 per kwh (or something like that), what | should we expect for 2030? $60? $20? | eloff wrote: | > Think Moore's Law, which is dead now. | | Look again. Moore's law in terms of single threaded performance | is dead. In literal terms of number of transistors on a wafer, | it's still increasing exponentially, just slower. And in terms | of what mattered when people cited Moore's law, the decrease in | price/performance, it's still exponential, just slower and | multi core. | | It will end, as all exponential trends must end lest they | consume the universe, but the end is not yet in sight. Recently | chips have started to go multi chip and three dimensional. So | even when we finally hit that scaling limit, we haven't quite | reached the end of exponential progress. | cogman10 wrote: | With the current silicon manufacturing processes, I'd say the | end is in sight. Every node shrink is taking longer and | longer and getting more and more expensive to fabricate. | | We've been reliant on node shrinks to push things further. | That hard limit is 0.2nm (silicon atom size) we are at ~2nm | gate features. | | It remains to be seen if we can get to that 0.2nm size, I | honestly don't think we can push much further past the 2nm | size (I'd imagine 0.5nm will be the limit). | | That, to me, is very much being "in sight". | bin_bash wrote: | hasn't it always referred to transistor count and not | performance? | jeffbee wrote: | It has always referred to the minimum of the cost- | complexity curve for integrated circuits. The progress of | Moore's Actual Law has never stopped. | | The thing people mean when they are talking about the | deceleration of single-threaded CPU performance is actually | Dennard scaling. Dennard said that density and power | efficiency were complementary in such a way as to keep | areal power constant. That was true until it suddenly | stopped being true. If Dennard scaling had continued you'd | be using a 20GHz CPU right now. | sova wrote: | Oxford Dictionary says: "the principle that the speed and | capability of computers can be expected to double every two | years, as a result of increases in the number of | transistors a microchip can contain." | | Which notably mentions performance. I have often | interpreted Moore's Law to be the fact that doubling | improvements in performance will continue roughly every | 16-18 months, but not always directly proportionally to | transistor count -- other ways to squeeze out doubling | performance gains arise and often in unexpected places. | eloff wrote: | Did you read the whole comment? I edited it, but that part | was in there from the beginning, just in different words. | bin_bash wrote: | I agree with you, I just think you weren't making your | case strongly enough by implying that Moore's Law | referred to more than just transistor count. | klodolph wrote: | > ...I just think you weren't making your case strongly | enough... | | I get where you are coming from, but this is one of the | most aggravating types of comments. | lanstin wrote: | I am sure there is some sci fi novel where species compete | for neutron stars because they are a very dense compute | substrate. | Hjfrf wrote: | Asimov's "The Last Question" is close, though the focus is | on entropy rather than any kind of space wars. | Isinlor wrote: | In the Perfect Imperfection by Jacek Dukaj [0] has | something called "Remy's curve" [1]. | | On the curve you can find: | | - Ultimate Computer is the computer using the best hardware | as allowed by the physical constants of our universe. See | also physics of computation. | | - Inclusions are in essence 'pocket universes'. They are | created for specific entities to run hardware in a | dedicated universe with physical constants different from | ours, allowing for better performance than those in our | universe | | - Ultimate Inclusion is the inclusion with the best | possible set of physical constants in the entire multiverse | | Seth Lloyd wrote a paper "Ultimate physical limits to | computation" [2]. | | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_Imperfection | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_Imperfection#/med | ia/Fi... | | [2] https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9908043 | arthurcolle wrote: | Isn't Three Body Problem kinda like this? | kevml wrote: | Not neutron stars specifically, but Accelerando by Charles | Stross covers this. | coderintherye wrote: | NREL has a great report on that, although it is focused on | utility-scale battery storage: | https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy20osti/75385.pdf | ortusdux wrote: | It looks like $156 in 2019 & $137 in 2020. Estimates are | $100/kwh by 2023-24 and $58/kwh by 2030. | | I do wonder how a dramatic shift towards Li powered cars will | effect the price. We may see demand outpace supply for a decade | or more. I hope it is the other way around because cheap | lithium batteries flooding the market would have many positive | implications. | | https://about.bnef.com/blog/battery-pack-prices-cited-below-... | cogman10 wrote: | If musk is to believed, (and I think he's on point with this), | $50/kWh will likely come within the next 5 years. | | So next 9 years? My expectation is beyond Tesla, the rest of | the industry will have hit on that sub $50/kwh price point. | That is going to make a lot of things really interesting. $2000 | for a 30kWh home battery backup? Who wouldn't get one? | | To further this, with climate change leading to more and more | extreme weather, I'm expecting that power outages are going to | be semi-common (assuming the grid doesn't invest in battery | backup). | ben_w wrote: | > $2000 for a 30kWh home battery backup? Who wouldn't get | one? | | Very few of the people that would currently benefit from a | domestic backup battery could afford $2k, and most of the | people who do have $2k to spare don't live in places with | unreliable electricity. | | The overlap isn't zero, but... for example, I visited Kenya | with an ex of mine, we met a local friend of hers, that | friend would've benefited from a more reliable electricity | bill, but her monthly rent and utility bills combined was | equivalent to about $85 and she couldn't afford to move. | cogman10 wrote: | > Very few of the people that would currently benefit from | a domestic backup battery could afford $2k, and most of the | people who do have $2k to spare don't live in places with | unreliable electricity. | | My expectation is that with climate change, unreliable | electricity is going to affect a lot more places. The polar | vortex that knocked out the Texas grid is likely to be a | more frequent and more extreme event. ACs running more | frequently will likely lead to more brown outs. | | Assuming our grids don't get major updates (I'm pretty | pessimistic about this), we are looking at more and more | outages in the future. It's certainly possible that smart | grids could significantly reduce outages, but that will | take too many actors working together to ever really fly. | | For example, if the grid could coordinate with your heating | and cooling, you could distribute AC usage to avoid | tripping the grid. | | Barring such a grid, homes having batteries would allow | owners to skate through brown outs. Further couple that | with solar and they could survive even major outages (hours | or even days). | | > The overlap isn't zero, but... for example, I visited | Kenya with an ex of mine, we met a local friend of hers, | that friend would've benefited from a more reliable | electricity bill, but her monthly rent and utility bills | combined was equivalent to about $85 and she couldn't | afford to move. | | A 1kwh battery would probably be a pretty positive impact. | Add on a 300W solar panel and you'd have something that | would extend the amount of electricity the have. That'd | come in at ~$400 (assuming $50/kwh). Not enough to run an | AC, but enough to keep the lights on and maybe run a | fridge. | | Otherwise... yeah... not much good news for places that | can't afford such batteries. | quickthrowman wrote: | I would rather spend a few thousand more for a natural gas | generator, it will run indefinitely as long as you have | natural gas. | dylan604 wrote: | And when the natural gas runs out you use what? | cogman10 wrote: | https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/natural-gas-power- | st... | | If the whole grid goes down, your gas likely won't be | there. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-06-07 23:00 UTC)