RE:CATL new LFP lithium battery This also makes me realize that if a 600 km range in an EV uses about 63 kilograms of lithium carbonate, then a 2000 km range EV is going to use a lot more.
This might take a while to materialize on a large scale, but for discussion purposes, a 1000 km range EV that seems to be next up in line lor long range EV's "could" use at least 100 kg of that same LI2CO3.
Of course, we are talking of lithium carbonate equivalent here and not lithium metal. The reason being that one this board and in the news, when we look at global demand and supply, we refer to carbonate that is a chemistry and not pure lithium.
And how much carbonate in a 2000 km EV ? ( a shmit load for sure )
All this of course has a price. And the market makers in China know this. You still have to sell to the masses and at a reasonable price. LFP batteries are cheaper to make than NCM ones, and mass production of different sizes of batteries will do just that.
If the goal is to match or even go below ICE engine cars and trucks prices, it seems that CATL is on a roll here.
As an example, LFP new technology will permit us to do buy a 600 to 800 km range SUV for about 40k to 50k and that should satisfy most consumers.
There will soon be options with lower ranges anywhere between 300 and 600 km that people can buy for 30k to 40k and for someone with deeper pockets that wants the 1000 km plus range and has no ploblem dishing out 60k to 100k to do get the "best", it will also be available.
"The original 70kWh Model S battery had 63kg of Lithium Carbonate Li2CO3. Often this was stated as the amount of lithium, which isn’t correct. Especially when people tried to compare it to the amount of known lithium available. While it’s typically sold as Lithium Carbonate, that’s not equivalent to the amount of Lithium available.
There’s about 12kg of Lithium in 63kg of Lithium Carbonate, so that original 70kWh Model S battery had 12kg of Lithium. I don’t know how much it has today, but they’ve been improving the chemistry to use less materials like Cobalt and Lithium."