Frith: Lowest battery spot prices will rise while average prices continue falling
James Frith · Unpacking China’s cheap battery costs · Oct 10, 2024 · at 15:14
James Frith, principal at Volta Energy Technologies, discusses whether current ultra-low battery prices in China are sustainable or will experience a near-term rebound.
0:00 / 0:46exact quote · 46.2s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“I think, you know, unfortunately, we're probably going to see prices increasing, you know, moderately in, in the next kind of year or so, I would say, or kind of, let's say two years out, we'll probably see higher prices than we're at today. But I don't think, Like in 2022, when we saw kind of lithium ion, average lithium ion battery prices rise for the first time you know, I think we're not going to see the average price rise particularly, but I think what we'll probably see is those kind of lowest prices that we're hearing reported in the market, you know, that we just discussed that are kind of perhaps not representative of long-term contract pricing. We'll probably see those prices Increasing, but in general, the kind of average price of batteries is going to continue to come down.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from James Frith
Frith: Past subsidies are not fundamental to China's current battery cost advantage
“So the subsidies from the last decade They've helped to build up these big companies that we know, BYD, CATL, Eve Energy, etc. But they're not fundamental in this, you know, in the way that people think they are to the kind of low-cost structure that we're see…”
Frith: Normalized US LFP cell production is 8% costlier than China
“For a LFP cell produced in China, 35 gigawatt hour facility you're looking at around kind of 68 dollars per kilowatt hour. So this isn't kind of optimized for these super low prices that we we're seeing today, but Assumes a kind of LFP material costs of about …”
Frith: Northvolt's yield struggles inflated costs and lost BMW's contract
“Northvolt started manufacturing cells on its plant around the end of twenty-twenty-two, I believe. So, kind of, we're coming up to two years now. And if the, you know, media reports are to be believed, they're still having a huge issue with yields. They can't …”
Frith: Chinese battery makers lack international IP for next-gen chemistries
“The technologies that are about to be adopted and, you know, going back to Silicon as an example here, right, imminently going to be adopted in electric vehicles. A lot of Chinese companies don't have the freedom to kind of operate and sell that material outsi…”
Frith: Western-Chinese partnerships can enable differentiated battery manufacturing onshoring
“Partnerships with kind of Chinese cell manufacturers, Western technology developers, I think is a big way that would be kind of almost a win-win situation for everyone, and would see us onshoring battery manufacturing in, in, in the US and Europe, with a diffe…”