Light Duty Vehicle Battery Costs

Comparing the costs of batteries can be confusing and/or problematic. This article aims to clarify some of the issues that have led to confusion when discussing both the present and the future cost of batteries. The specification of a ‘break-through price’ of batteries in terms of dollars per kilowatt-hour (kWh) will need to allow for a variety of factors. This includes the type of vehicle that is envisioned to compete with traditional combustion passenger vehicles and the battery capacity of the battery pack that matches the dollar per kilowatt-hour price. As the IEA has provided an average approximation of the ‘Internal Combustion Engine Parity Target’ for both PHEV and EDV batteries, it is difficult to compare this target to the estimates discussed within this article and within Longden (2014).