The relative size and age of the US electric vehicle market means that a few vehicles are able to drive market-wide trends in the battery chemistries and cell formats on the road today. Three lithium-ion chemistries account for nearly all of the storage capacity, and half of the cells are cylindrical. However, no specific model exists to examine the costs of manufacturing these cylindrical cells. Here we present a process-based cost model tailored to the cylindrical lithiumion cells currently used in the EV market. We examine the costs for varied cell dimensions, electrode thicknesses, chemistries, and production volumes. Although cost savings are possible from increasing cell dimensions and electrode thicknesses, economies of scale have already been reached, and future cost reductions from increased production volumes are minimal. Prismatic cells, which are able to further capitalize on the cost reduction from larger formats, can offer further reductions than those possible for cylindrical cells.
As lithium ion batteries become more common in electric vehicles and other storage applications, the cost of these batteries will be highly dependent on its namesake material. However, examining the constituent materials of these devices shows that lithium is a relatively small contributor to both the battery mass and manufacturing cost. The use of more expensive lithium precursor materials results in less than 1% increases in the cost of lithium ion cells
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