Predicting the future manufacturing cost of batteries for plug-in vehicles for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 2017-2025 Light-Duty Greenhouse Gas Standards

Abstract

In developing the U.S. 2017-2025 Light-Duty Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) modeled lithium-ion battery packs for future electrified vehicles to estimate their direct manufacturing costs through 2025. As part of the 2016 Midterm Evaluation of the standards for model years (MY) 2022 to 2025, the analysis was revised to account for developments in battery design since the 2012 rulemaking. This paper describes the methodology that was used for estimating battery capacity, power, and cost, and compares the projected cost estimates to other sources. An empirical equation is derived for specifying motor power as a function of target acceleration time, and suggested factors for converting cell-level costs to pack-level costs are developed.