Cost savings for manufacturing lithium batteries in a flexible plant

• Flexible plants save costs if the electrodes for all batteries have the same size.
• The power-to-energy for the battery can be set by the electrode thickness.
• The factors setting cost are the cell area for the battery and production level.
• For the four batteries studied, the price range was $20–24 m−2 of cell area.

The flexible plant postulated in this study would produce four types of batteries for electric-drive vehicles – a hybrid (HEV), 10-mile range and 40-mile range plug-in hybrids (PHEV), and a 150-mile range battery-electric (EV). The annual production rate of the plant is 235,000 battery packs (HEV: 100,000; PHEV10: 60,000; PHEV40: 45,000; EV: 30,000). The cost savings per battery pack calculated with the Argonne BatPaC model for this flex plant vs. dedicated plants range from 9% for the EV battery packs to 21% for the HEV packs including the battery management systems (BMS). The investment cost savings are even larger, ranging from 21% for EVs to 43% for HEVs. The costs of the 1.0-kWh HEV batteries are projected to approach $714 per unit and that of the EV batteries to approach $188 per kWh with the most favorable cell chemistries. The best single indicator of the cost of producing lithium-manganate spinel/graphite batteries in a flex plant is the total cell area of the battery. For the four batteries studied, the price range is $20–24 per m2 of cell area, averaging $21 per m2 for the entire flex plant.