According to a study by the market research company Cairn Energy Research Advisors, the cost of battery packs for Tesla’s electric cars is up to 60 percent lower than for other manufacturers’ electric cars. This is reported by the online publication Business Insider (BI). Accordingly, the Tesla batteries last year cost $ 158 per kilowatt hour. Battery packs with so-called pouch cells such as those from Porsche Taycan and Chevrolet Bolt, on the other hand, would have cost $ 200 per kilowatt hour, those with prismatic cells such as for BMW even $ 253 per kilowatt hour.
If the prices mentioned are correct, Tesla would have to spend roughly $ 16,000 for the battery in its top models Model S and Model X (with around 100 kilowatt hours of capacity), Porsche around $ 19,000 for its somewhat smaller Taycan batteries. In the BMW electric car i3, the largest battery would cost around $ 11,000, although at 42 kilowatt hours it is not even half the size of Model S and Model X. The battery for the Tesla Model 3 with standard range would be according to the Cairn numbers Cost $ 7,900 and with a maximum range of just under $ 12,000.
As can be seen from this, even at the market leader Tesla, the batteries still represent a considerable cost block for electric cars. This is probably the reason why they do not make public statements about the costs of why Cairn works with indirect methods. According to BI, market researchers use a model with 500 variables such as prices for raw materials and chemical products.
The study result from Tesla’s lead in battery costs coincides with other studies and statements from CEO Elon Musk. He had already declared in summer 2018 that, together with Panasonic, they had reduced the costs at the cell level to $ 100 per kilowatt hour. In addition, according to BloombergNEF, another energy consulting company, but about $ 50 to build the individual cells into modules and these into a finished battery pack. Together with these integration costs, Musk plans to drop below the $ 100 a kilowatt hour mark this year.
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