The question was about the present, not the future. Maybe Musk will be able to lower the price of batteries in the future, but his current price is pretty much what I said. What he has achieved is to make lithium batteries about as cheap as existing consumer batteries, not even as cheap as the sodium-sulfur batteries that power companies use at the moment, let alone what is necessary for widespread deployment.
The prices Musk is quoting is a full 10x less than analyst estimates of what those batteries should cost. Tesla would not offer the product unless they felt they could make a sufficient profit, so their costs must be lower still. That is what I was talking about.
It’s improvements in manufacturing, not underlying technology, that Musk is claiming is responsible for the decreased costs. My analyst source was not online so I can’t easily provide a link..
That hasn’t stooped Musk planning to couple batteries with solar power.
The question was about the present, not the future. Maybe Musk will be able to lower the price of batteries in the future, but his current price is pretty much what I said. What he has achieved is to make lithium batteries about as cheap as existing consumer batteries, not even as cheap as the sodium-sulfur batteries that power companies use at the moment, let alone what is necessary for widespread deployment.
Musk is claiming orders of magnitude reduction in cost.
*Orders of magnitude”?? which means at least a hundred times? Methinks you’re mistaken.
Meaning more than 1 order of magnitude, which necessitates the plural.
I think Musk speaks of roughly 8% improvement in battery cost per year. At that pace it takes three decades to get them 1 order of magnitude cheaper.
The prices Musk is quoting is a full 10x less than analyst estimates of what those batteries should cost. Tesla would not offer the product unless they felt they could make a sufficient profit, so their costs must be lower still. That is what I was talking about.
Can we see some links? These claims don’t make sense to me. Musk didn’t achieve any breakthroughs in battery technology.
It’s improvements in manufacturing, not underlying technology, that Musk is claiming is responsible for the decreased costs. My analyst source was not online so I can’t easily provide a link..
10x..? Color me sceptical.