On Thu, 27 Oct 2005 15:26:38 -0700, you wrote:

>Though I won't answer all questions raised recently, I do think battery
>costs and their effect on PHEV cost-of-ownership are relevant.
>
>However, as technical lead for a small nonprofit organization (us) I
>have had very limited and unreliable access to volume pricing
>information. Also, what I do have is not for public disclosure.
>Therefore, I have had to get as much mileage as possible from the
>snippets of information I have acquired, as well as refrain from giving
>many specifics.
>
>As clearly stated in my "Battery evaluation and production cost summary"
>of July 21, the $600/kWh NiMH price is a projection based on 150% of the
>wholesale price I was quoted for Chinese NiMH "D" cells. I just now
>remembered and looked up an approximate volume quote of $735/kWh for a
>more appropriate NiMH module from a major manufacturer. It's a little
>higher than my guess, but not out of the ballpark. Electro Energy has
>not quoted any specific prices, but they have assured us that their
>pricing will be "competitive". They are also working on a future Li-ion
>product using their unique packaging.
>
>For Li-ion, I projected $400/kWh from an approximate real wholesale
>price of $3 each for 18650 cells. Again, it was a tenuous strategy, but
>appears to have made sense, as a manufacturer of large-scale Li-ion
>batteries has recently estimated a high volume price of . . . $400/kWh!

Ron:

Thanks for trying to answer and further clarify and explore
these battery pricing questions.

In a post a couple of weeks ago you said:

---------------------
"In my "Battery evaluation and production cost summary"
message of July 21, I stated that I believe an auto
manufacturer would currently pay $600/kWh or less for a NiMH
battery pack capable of 150,000 miles, or $400/kWh for a
Li-ion pack."
---------------------

This confused me a bit as I mentioned, and I went back to
read your post from then. I think the confusion was that
you were stating things in terms of what an auto
manufacturer 'might be willing to pay', and not in terms of
what pricing manufacturers might be reasonably able to
offer, going forward. This latter seems to be more of what
you are clarifying here... what sort of pricing we can
guestimate might be available going forward, basing this on
a few manufacturer-side pieces of data.

In any event, I think for now you have done some good
research on battery cost and availability questions, so
thanks for going over these matters. As mentioned in
private email, it is just not possible for me and others to
avoid wondering as to how Electro Energy intends to provide
BEV/PHEV-suitable NiMH batteries when everyone else seems to
be unwilling or legally precluded (or some combination) from
doing so, but I'm not sure it's necessary to clarify that
publicly, if it is sensitive information.

You have also made some mention, if memory serves, of the
comparatively unproven nature of Lithium, and to me this
provided some explanation as to why an auto manufacturer
might want to pay a more "skeptical" price for Lithium...
taking into account that there are some unproven
life-of-battery issues there, whereas with NiMH, we (both
consumers and others) are further along in understanding the
lifetime expectations we have for NiMH in some of our
hybrids.

I believe you have emphasized that there is a looming
unanswered question out there as to
battery-lifetime-issues-in-PHEVs, and that these questions
are hard to answer without some years of on-road testing
(sorry for any mis-stating of the exact issue here).