[epistasis]

Agreed. I think that battery production, unlike solar panel production, will be highly incentivized today be local. Batteries are very heavy in kg/€ compared to other products.

There are big advantages to keeping this somewhat local. Shipping batteries over seas or cross continent, after the raw materials have also been shopped long distances, will likely be economically inefficient.

[krisoft]

I’m not following what you say about the weight.

You know what is heavy and relatively cheap? Steel. Yet we ship it all around.

A Tesla S battery is reported to weight 544kg and costs an estimated 15000 USD. That gives us 0.04 kg/USD.

For steel one estimate gives us that 1000kg goes for 1100 USD. Which gives us 0.9 kg/USD.

I thought maybe i’m missing your point so I did the same calculation for something light and expensive we are shipping around too.

One can buy 0.49kg ipad for 440 USD. Which gives us 0.001 kg/USD.

So batteries are somewhere between steel and ipads in terms of kg/$. Can you explain what makes both of those ends shipable while batteries won’t be?

[avianlyric]

I also wonder if batteries can be commoditised the same way solar panels have been. Battery chemistry and manufacturing processes seem to be much more complex than solar panels, additionally there seems to be significantly more trade offs to be made by car manufacturers, than solar panel installers.

[epistasis]

I think that they will eventually become components not unlike current solar panels and inverters. I wouldn't underestimate the complexity of solar panels, there's massive continuous innovation just as there is with batteries.