CapNgain

Alternative Energy Storage: It's All About Price vs. Performance

Consistent with the overall theme of your article, I believe the price/performance of Lithium Iron Phosphate will translate into the following market categories:

a) For $100K and higher sports/super car category, there's a strong case for EVs, as the battery pack cost can be covered, and the high peak torque to peak horsepower ratio is hard to beat with any ICE engine. That's why Tesla's business plan could be very successful, if they can just learn to run operations better.

b) For the mid-market range, battery cost limits the economics of pure EVs, and therefore hybrids and light plug-in hybrids are reasonable

c) On the low-end of the market, battery cost only works for the lightest short range vehicles, such as scooters and e-bikes. If one visits Taiwan, China, SE Asia, and some parts of Europe with their high "in the city core" penetration of scooters, one would think the US electric scooter market is still in early adoption phase (perhaps even being slowed by extremely cheap scooters that don't work well).

The above categories could easily change w.r.t. some additional factors, such as:

a) What will government Carbon strategies look like... a cap and trade system could help EV/plug-in HEV owners recover money by selling carbon credits to gas guzzler owners...?

b) Further technical advances in lower cost hydrid sources... for example, I see potential with mechanically rechargeable Aluminum/magnesium air cells (low cost, high energy density, with the byproduct recyclable)

c) Further advances in super-capacitor technology, perhaps even built-into lithium batteries.... today's hybrids have city mileage similar to highway mileage, but with better regenerative braking energy recapture, hybrids should get much better mileage in city driving, due to less losses from wind resistance. For couriers and taxis, this could allow for more battery pack in the economics.