De la chute du prix des batteries au lithium

Logan Goldie-Scot, Bloomberg NEF :

In December 2018, BloombergNEF published the results of its ninth Battery Price Survey, a series that begin in 2012 looking back at data from as early as 2010. The annual price survey has become an important benchmark in the industry and the fall in prices has been nothing short of remarkable: the volume weighted average battery pack fell 85% from 2010-18, reaching an average of $176/kWh.

Le prix au kilowatt-heure ne cesse de baisser, mais l’exigence de technicité ne cesse d’augmenter. Doucement mais surement, les fabricants reprennent le contrôle de la conception, et parfois même de la fabrication des batteries. À l’exception peut-être des pneumatiques, les batteries seront le seul consommable de véhicules aux pièces statiques, et outre l’image de marque et le design, le principal vecteur de valeur ajoutée¹.

Par ailleurs :

The sensitivity of battery pack prices to commodity prices is much lower than commonly understood. A 50% increase in lithium prices would for instance increase the battery pack price of a nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) 811 battery by less than 4%. Similarly, a doubling of cobalt prices would result in a 3% increase in the overall pack price. Yes, contracts may fluctuate depending on the underlying commodity price but not by as much as you might think.

S’il fallait encore une preuve que la « crise du cobalt » est complètement déconnectée de la réalité…