Worldwide, one in five new cars sold this year will be battery-powered, per International Energy Agency estimates; in 2018, just 2 percent of new vehicles sold were EVs. Electric two- and three-wheelers have taken off in many countries over the last decade, most notably China, India, and Vietnam. In the U.S., there’s been a surge in both grid-scale storage and backup batteries for homes equipped with rooftop solar. Startups are manufacturing battery-powered induction stoves. Disney and Netflix are working with clean energy group RMI to try out batteries as replacements for dirty diesel generators on film sets.
One big reason for 2024’s price decline was expanded competition between battery manufacturers at a time when demand for EVs — and thus batteries — has been weaker than once expected, BloombergNEF writes. In response, manufacturers jockeyed for market position by offering bargain-bin prices. Other factors contributed, too: Key metals prices plummeted, the cheaper (and safer) lithium iron phosphate chemistry became more popular, and good old-fashioned economies of scale helped manufacturers improve efficiency.
Notably, this year marked the first time the average passenger-EV battery price dipped below $100 per kWh — “an oft-cited rule of thumb for where EVs reach price parity” with gas cars, per BloombergNEF. Prices for passenger-EV batteries fell 27 percent this year.
It’s not just lithium-ion batteries that are gliding down the learning curve. Solar and, to a choppier extent, wind have also seen their prices free-fall over time. These ever-improving economics make it easier every year to adopt clean energy and EVs — and harder and harder to argue against them.
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