One of Elon Musk’s most interesting comments on the recent Tesla Q4 earnings call was his statement that Tesla’s battery modules and packs “can essentially use any high energy density 2170 chemistry.” As the world’s biggest user of battery cells by a significant margin, this may have other international automakers worried that Tesla will suck up a big portion of independent battery supply in China over the next few years.
By now, regular readers of this column are well aware that we (along with most other writers who focus on electric vehicles) consider the threat of the “Tesla killer” to be no threat at all. Yes, Big Auto is producing excellent EVs, some of which are in Tesla’s league, but they’ll never build more than they have to, and they’ll continue steering customers to their gas-guzzling, high-margin models. It’s what they do.
A couple of CleanTechnica’s readers/advisors recently gathered together some interesting numbers and insights. To start this piece, I’ll just repost what one of them passed along to me: I’m finding Chevy Volt replacement batteries online for about $2,300. $2,300/16 kWh = $144/kWh Retail. On the GM Parts Store site a … [continued]
