According to reports, Tesla of the United States is a global benchmark enterprise in the field of pure electric vehicles and autonomous driving, and has significant advantages over its rivals. The latest research report pointed out that in terms of lithium battery costs, Tesla has a huge lead in the pure electric vehicle industry and has the lowest cost in the industry. This advantage will continue for ten years.
The market research company “Cairn Energy Research Consulting Company” released this report. The company also pointed out that Tesla’s lithium battery cost advantage will continue into 2030, and in the later period, General Motors of the United States will narrow the gap with Tesla.
The most expensive components
The head of Cairn company Sam Jaffe has long been concerned about pure electric cars and batteries. He said that Tesla has stepped on the “gas pedal”. They see now as a critical period and are expanding production capacity. Taking Shanghai, Berlin, and Austin in the United States as examples, Tesla is building one factory after another.
Jia Fei believes that Tesla’s current advantage is not only the scale of production, but also comes from Tesla’s head Musk’s continuous attention to reducing the cost of lithium batteries.
However, there is a price threshold for the full popularity of electric vehicles. Lithium battery packs are the most expensive components for pure electric vehicles, and the cost of battery packs also results in the price of pure electric vehicles being significantly higher than that of fuel vehicles. According to the statistics of Edmunds, a professional American auto website, the average sales price of new cars in the United States in February was US$40,472, while the price of electric vehicles was as high as US$53,392.
Cost advantage
The Cairn report pointed out that Tesla currently purchases lithium battery cells from three suppliers, namely Panasonic of Japan, LG Chem of South Korea, and China Ningde Times. The average purchase price of Tesla is US$142 per kilowatt-hour. In comparison, the purchase cost of GM’s lithium battery unit is US$169, while the average cost of the electric vehicle industry is US$186.
The Cairn report pointed out that the average cost of a battery pack for Tesla’s electric vehicles is US$187 per kilowatt-hour, while that of General Motors is as high as US$207, and the industry average is US$246. The low price of lithium battery cells naturally leads to a low overall cost of the battery pack.
Jia Fei said that because Musk has been working to reduce the cost of battery components in the past ten years, Tesla battery packs are currently 10% cheaper than General Motors and 24% cheaper than other manufacturers in the industry. He said that cost is very important for electric vehicles. The lower the cost, the lower the price threshold that consumers face.