Electric car battery price is rising after years of decline

So far in 2022, a lithium-ion battery pack cost an average of $151 per kWh of capacity, which is 7 percent more than in 2021, when the average price was $141 per kWh according to Bloomberg’s figures. Both the packages as a whole and the individual cells became more expensive, but the price increase of the cells was relatively stronger than that of the entire packages. The current expectation is that prices will remain at the same level next year, so that there will be no further price fall then either.

That is bad news for those waiting for electric cars to become cheaper, because the fall in battery prices has been an important reason for the arrival of more affordable EVs such as the Dacia Spring and Peugeot e-208 in recent years. To illustrate: when the first Tesla’s Model S appeared on Dutch roads at the end of 2012, lithium-ion batteries still cost about $750 per kWh of capacity – five times more than now.

Price battery electric car will fall again later

The fact that the price of lithium-ion batteries is now rising does not mean that cheaper electric cars will never come. However, it is expected that the stagnant fall in prices will delay its arrival. According to Bloomberg’s predictions, the lithium-ion battery price should reach around $ 100 per kWh for the first time around 2026, after it starts to decline again in 2024. Cheaper batteries are therefore still on the horizon. In addition, the adoption of solid state battery technology does not seem too far off, broadening the spectrum of available batteries and possibly further driving down the price of lithium-ion ones.