LG Chem will soon supply NCMA battery cells to Tesla

Currently, LG Chem supplies NCM 811 battery cells to Tesla in China, but starting next month, there will be a change to the NCMA chemistry. The Tesla Model Y MIC (Made in China) is set to become the first production electric car to get a NCMA battery.
Previously, it was expected that GM would be the first automaker to use the NCMA chemistry from LG Chem, with the introduction of its Ultium batteries.
The 2022 GMC HUMMER EV Edition 1 will debut GM’s all-new 800 V Ultium battery architecture capable of 350 kW charging and arrive later this year.
GM says that with its Ultium battery made with NCMA cells, the kWh cost at the cell level will be below 100 USD (82 euros).
Compared to other high nickel content chemistries, NCMA battery cells are more durable, safer and charge faster, but energy density shouldn’t be much different.

Performance of different advanced battery cell cathodes
Important automakers such as Tesla, Volkswagen or Renault already stated how they see different battery chemistries and their applications.
- Low-cost production: LFP (LiFePO4) with a kWh cost around 60 euros
- High volume production: LNMO with a kWh cost around 70 euros
- High energy niche: NCMA with a kWh cost around 90 euros
LFP and LNMO are both cobalt-free battery chemistries and soon should become standard in electric vehicles, while NCMA batteries will likely be common in some niches, such as premium electric cars or commercial vehicles that require extra range, like trucks or vans.
In the long run, sodium-ion batteries (NIBs) have the potential of driving the kWh cost below 40 euros, but further improvements in mass production need to be made.
Anyway, the important thing to retain here is that even the most expensive and highest energy density battery cells will soon cost way less than 100 euros per kWh…
Policy makers need to ban ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) vehicles as soon as possible. Currently, automakers are only overpricing their EVs to protect their polluting cars sales. They can no longer blame battery technologies without calling us stupid.
More info:
http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=67529
What is the limit?
330 Wh/Kg?
Mike
Yes, combined with silicon anodes the limit is probably around that figure.
To go higher we need solid state batteries with lithium metal anodes.
Finger crossed…………..but no one has done it as yet sadly.
Chatting to a workmate today over dinner……we drew out the spec for a “Now ev”.
LFP battery, motor with no magnets 30 kw/h pack…..120-150 ish range.
Not going to be a tesla so, 0-100 in 12 secs & 140 km/h top speed.
We save money by using the owners smart phone as a display, fwd & use drum brakes as that with eletro brake force would be enough……its do able but who will do it.?
China too busy at home……….Western producers don’t want to do it?
Korea?
Mike
The Europeans will keep overpricing their EVs to sell gas cars instead.
The Koreans seem more interested in competing with Tesla. The new Kia EV6 and the Hyundai IONIQ 5 are great, but far from affordable.
Chinese automakers will eventually produce enough electric cars for the domestic market and start exportation.
BYD is going to sell its cobalt-free Blade Batteries to other automakers. Let’s wait and see who gets them first.
Not really. Pure silicon has a gravimetric density very close to pure lithium. (And volumetric even slightly above.) In practice, it depends of course on how much of the theoretical limit is left when accounting for electrolyte, coatings, binders etc… But most figures I’ve seen suggest lithium metal with solid state electrolytes will likely only have a small advantage at best over pure silicon.
The next big step after pure silicon is from conversion cathodes, not from replacing silicon anodes with lithium anodes.
I have a nice conspiracy theory to share with you guys…
I was just thinking that if I was the CEO of an European automaker, I would publicly trash electric cars in every opportunity to not wake competitors, but then I would secretly prepare to bring electric cars with cobalt-free batteries in full force, dominating the market and leaving my competitors stranded with their obsolete technology.
What if this is what Carlos Tavares from Stellantis is preparing? We are both Portuguese, so we might have had the same crazy idea ehehehe!
SVOLT – the battery cell maker that started producing LNMO battery cells – is already “confirmed” to be a supplier of Stellantis. CATL that produces LFP battery cells is the other one.
This diabolical plan needs to take place!
Amazing. I would pay to see it happen, even if only as a Netflix series 😀
That would certainly be a surprise. The American part of that mash-up is Chrysler/Jeep, which has been a technology laggard and maker of the most gas-guzzling autos, so yes, I would be shocked.
If there is a company that kinda fits that bill it is not European but Japanese in Toyota…
Toyota also has new JV contracts with BYD in which BYD will build BEVs for Toyota to sell in China…
Toyota’s truck company Hino also has similar JV contracts with BYD for the same purpose…
BYD will also be selling a large part of their spinoff battery company in order to satisfy the stock market maximum ownership requirements for wherever they are listing so it will be interesting to see who buys into it…
That wouldn’t be a plausible theory even if anyone but you believed that residual cobalt in current chemistries is the limiting factor for scaling battery production…
Ok…
https://www.mining.com/drc-concentrate-export-ban-may-tighten-global-copper-cobalt-supply/
Or..
PSA/Stellantis is investing in two battery factories with Total/Saft.
The new PSA hydrogen vans have a fuel cell from (I believe) another Total subsidiary.
Maybe Tavares is just on big oil’s timeline.
Pedro, the fact that you are supporting the idea that “Policy makers need to ban ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) vehicles as soon as possible”, is detrimental to yourself and to mankind. What kind of hate is propelling you? I suggest you step back, think about yourself, think about mankind, and write a seminal article about what you want to destroy, exactly and extensively.
Possibly you want every newborn child coming equipped with 50 sqm of photovoltaics (lifetime guaranteed) harvesting 30 kWh per day, and coming equipped with a 24 kWh V2G battery (lifetime guaranteed) so there is no need to bother with noisy costly ICEs, and no need to bother with muslims, petrodollars, oil rigs, supertankers, refineries, refueling stations and politicians.
May I beg you to do your homework before propagating totalitarianism.
Over the next 50 years, there will be 5 billion newborn children.
I suggest you park them under a giant photovoltaic panel in construction that will soon measure 500 kilometer by 500 kilometer. This way you will have saved mankind. And you, as battery expert, you surely know how the people is going to be enslaved, for producing the 5 billion 24 kWh V2G batteries that your totalitarianism is requiring. Please stop this, Pedro
No, Pedro, electricity is not due to become “everything”.
Yes, Pedro, the future deserves to be more robust, and more enjoyable.
Please realize that PHEVs represent a better vector of progress for humanity. Please promote and subsidise Single-Geared Front-Wheel-Drive Serial Hybrid Vehicles embedding a “8.0 C rate” 24 kWh V2G battery, and embedding a carefully depolluted 30 kW ICE (Renault SCe 65 or Fiat Firefly 65) whose combustion chambers are embedding a pre-ignition chamber allowing to burn lean and clean. A Na-ion + graphene battery chemistry will emerge, that’s guaranteeing a 24 kWh V2G battery to cycle 20,000 times a 12 kWh energy under a 18 kW charging power and 18 kW discharging power, that’s storing 0.160 kWh per kilogram (at cell level). Together, the Na-ion cells will weigh 150 kg. A 100 km WLTP range is possible in pure EV mode, in case of exceptionally cycling 18 kWh instead of 12 kWh. The 24 kWh V2G battery skateboard shall consist in two longitudinal battery halves separated by the 24 cm wide structural tunnel that’s hosting the comprehensive depollution system that’s featuring flushable trash canisters, allowing the PHEV to operate as air sanitizer in case the ambient air contains dirt coming from domestic heaters, from the road surface, from tires, from brake pads, etc.Such air sanitizer function can get activated anytime, which means it can get activated in pure EV mode and in range extended mode. Knowing there are two longitudinal identical battery sections, each section can consist in large battery cells requiring no parallelization. A high efficiency active liquid thermal management is required, that’s relying on a top and a bottom heat exchanger, both needing to be surrounded by a thermally insulated enclosure that’s preventing the energy that’s spent for moving heat or cold, to dissipate inside the structural beams of the vehicle. In case of battery trouble, a “limp mode” matrix switch can isolate one of the two battery halves. Inevitably, entering the “limp home” will halve the DC voltage.The PHEV will hands-free recharge, juste like robotized lawnmower do nowadays. The PHEV will recharge from the grid using a 11 kW power (220 VAC 3-phase, 30 amp per phase). The PHEV will also “direct” recharge from any V2G infrastructure that’s available, through a 18 kW 360 VDC 50 amp link. The policy makers shall ban “quick charging” vehicles as soon as possible. The policy makers shall encourage and subsidize the production of ethanol, provided it is not crop-based. Looking at electric vehicles as the only option for the decarbonisation of Europe’s and Latin America transport sector is wrong and we should take into account all available sustainable solutions, including low-carbon liquid fuels such as renewable ethanol.The European Commission is set to unveil a new package of energy and climate legislation on Bastille Day, 14 July – potentially kicking off a revolution in EU road transport policy. Among the biggest initiatives is a review of the Renewable Energy Directive, RED III. When it comes to sustainable biofuels, this will be the Commission’s chance to fix what it did not quite get right the first and second times around on policies intended to encourage the uptake of renewable energy in transport. Have a nice day, Pedro.
Please explain why would one decide to go hybrid with decades-promising bio fuel, which is very expensive, rather to go electric – the technology that is already proving itself being greener and becoming cheaper from month to month? Synthetic fuels were already researched during WWII by Germans but since then there was no end product that would be viable for every day use. If you have better technology ready for the market why would one push older, unproved technology?
It is the same thing that old-energy boys try to persuade us that coal (and nuclear) is the only option to keep lights on and heat houses. But we are getting proofs that this is not true true all the time. And at the end, the winning technology should be the one with the best mix of: no or positive environmental impact (being the most important), ready to market, economically viable.
Stephane what I hate are coups and wars for oil.
Electricity is more democratic, it can be generated very easily locally by communities, we don’t rely exclusively on big corporations.
Good luck with producing enough biofuel at home.
Nonetheless I don’t think that electric cars are the solution for every transportation problem, we need more good electric public transportation.
By the way, Pedro, the 30 kW ICE I am talking about as range extender, is a Renault SCe 65 ICE or Fiat Firefly 65 ICE, producing a 82 Nm torque @ 3,600 rpm.
By the way, MBS and EM are enthusiastic about creating a few muslim gigacities measuring 500 km by 500 km in the Arabic Peninsula, each hosting 5 billion muslims dedicated to what I am talking about, allowed to retire at the age of 50 for peacefully rallying the Earth and the Planets as rich tourists, and determined to eject at the age of 100, from the simulation we are all trapped in.
MBS and EM are right in saying that the people will get seduced once there is question of living free of charge inside a newly built 250 sqm high-ceiling bungalow eventually containing artificially lighted trees, speaking of a family composed by two parents due to raise three children.
The only prerequisite MBS is formulating, is to benefit from the OTAN umbrella for guaranteeing that nobody will dare harming his gigacities, and to benefit from French and Italian food caters that are going to transform France and Italy into very rich countries, feeding 5 billion people through many subsidiaries located everywhere in the world, and this includes transforming vast areas of the Arabic Peninsula, into agricultural and livestock areas.
MBS and EM say that it is feasible to pack 5 billion muslims inside a 500 km by 500 km footprint, as soon as there is question of deeply burying all water pipelines, food pipelines and sewers, and provided that one is determined to perpetuate a host of traditional indoor activities below the main floor under artificial light.
MBS and EM say (but I don’t know if this is humor) that roads, cars and trucks may not be necessary, once telecoms are pervasive, and once there is the belief that what is called reality, is a simulation.
Ok, you really need to stop eating trippy mushrooms!
Hi Mike, your comment would be deeper, if you knew about entomology. Have a nice day.
Can you please stop with that silly conspiracy theory that car makers are artificially inflating EV prices? It fails basic logic. If they had to artificially inflate the prices, that would mean EVs must be *highly* profitable — i.e. there would be no reason whatsoever to “protect” combustion car sales… And that doesn’t even touch on the fact that this sort of “protecting” wouldn’t work anyway, when competitors are willing and ready to take over.
Face it: legacy car makers just aren’t able to make cheaper competitive EVs (yet), despite current battery prices.
Legacy automakers are just protecting their already made investments in ICE technology, same as with Toyota and its hybrids. I think this is pretty obvious.
Keep believing automakers’ lies, because they are so credible and the dieselgate never happened…
If you want to believe their narrative about electric cars costing twice as much to produce as their gas counterparts because of battery costs, then you must believe that the 22 kWh battery of the Renault Twingo ZE costs 10.000 euros (455 euros per kWh) to justify the price difference, or the 50 kWh battery of the Peugeot e-208 costs 15.000 euros (300 euros per kWh)… That is ridiculous.
Just curious. How much do you think automakers are currently paying for EV batteries? 400 euros per kWh? 300 euros per kWh?
Not to forget that if automakers make electric cars more affordable, subsidies from the governments to buy them end immediately.
Subsidies are an incentive to keep prices high. By overpricing electric cars automakers get money from customers and tax-payers. They are doing the smart thing, politicians are the dumb (or corrupt) ones.
Why I haven’t test driven a Peugeot e-208 yet…
Peugeot 208 Puretech 130 Alure
€26.120 – Dutch consumer price (10/2019)
– €2.990 – Emissions tax for fuel vehicles
– €1.700 – Cost of engine, based on (old) GM document that calculates €400 + €11-15/kW
– €500 – Cost of transmission, “internet-based” estimate €400 tot €1000
– €100 – Cost of fuel tank and pipes
= €20.830 – Cost of car without driveline
+ €1.000 – Cost of electric motor, based on (old) document saying €8-12/kW
+ €7.500 – Cost of li-ion battery pack, halfway between Renault’s €200/kwh retail price and Tesla’s €100/kwh cost price estimate
+ €100 – Charging plug and cable
+ €0 – Emissions tax on BEV’s
= €29.430 = reasonable price for Peugeot e-208 Alure
Real consumer price for e-208 Alure (10/2019): €36.250
The fuel and EV versions of the 208 share the same platform and are assembled in the same factory on the same production line, so there is no advantage of scale for the fuel version. Both versions are developed as a single project. Where does the 20% difference between “reasonable” and “real” come from?
Hi Pedro, what EV currently being sold has most energy dense batteries? Can you tell?
Hi Josef.
BAIC EX3.
https://pushevs.com/2021/03/16/baic-ex3-has-the-most-energy-dense-battery/
I think that recently another two or three Chinese models also reached the 200 Wh/kg figure, but I can’t find the link.
Thanks!!
Good to see further diversification and incremental improvements, especially for ~15 or ~20 min DC charging speed ~ no longer supporting any FUD against BEV. Thanks Pedro
Agree Max. Fast charging is really important to most people that can’t charge at home.
Pedro consegue dizer se os Tesla Y que chegam em Agosto a Europa vem com as novas células LG? Obrigado
Olá Miguel.
Não sei, é possível que sim.
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