[RE Farmer]

Bloomberg is forcasting a 19% drop in Li-Batt prices this year:

http://www.4evriders.org/2010/09/li...may-tumble-19-percent-in-2010-or-how-bout-25/

The question is: Is this price drop primarily for the expensive Li chemistries like A123 and Kokam, and will they only sell to OEMs and not to retail customers like us. IOW, will we see any price drops from the likes of TS or CALB?

 

[Woodsmith]

I read about the price drop here.
http://www.ecogeek.org/power-storag...:+EcoGeek+(EcoGeek)&utm_content=Google+Reader

 

[david85]

Lithium battery supply surplus = *puts on wolfish grin*

One can only hope

 

[tomofreno]

Seems this may be bad news, not good news. Panasonic, Samsung, and Sanyo don't sell to diyers. So are they going to engage in a price war that puts the much smaller companies who do, such as TS and CALB, out of business?

 

[david85]

But the chinese will sell to anyone and if the supply of lithium is enough on the open market they may well do to lithium batteries what they did to aluminum. I agree these two companies likely don't want anything to do with us, but they cannot control the market anymore.

 

[Woodsmith]

Seems this may be bad news, not good news. Panasonic, Samsung, and Sanyo don't sell to diyers. So are they going to engage in a price war that puts the much smaller companies who do, such as TS and CALB, out of business?

Would that tend to towards lower priced EVs from the car manufacturers in due course?

 

[JRP3]

Far as I know the Chinese companies are still the only ones mass producing large format prismatics so I don't think they will be hurt.* Pricing for TS/CALB has not improved over the last year so even if there is some pressure from Sanyo and others I don't think it will bother the Chinese much.

*Excluding International Battery of course, but since they won't sell to the general public and I don't know of any OEM using their cells either, I don't count them. They must sell batteries to someone...