Renewable Gossip

The 24 kilowatt-hour battery pack that fits under the floor of the Nissan Leaf.

The folks at Pike Research, a market intelligence firm specializing in clean technology, have spent most of 2009 looking at various dimensions of electric-drive vehicles. The Colorado-based firm’s latest study, Electric Vehicle Batteries, digs into lithium ion batteries—the enabling technology for robust plug-in hybrids and electric cars.

Pike forecasts that the market for lithium ion batteries for transportation will grow from $875.6 million in 2010 to nearly $8 billion by 2015. That sounds like a steep curve, but Pike’s forecast for 2015 is about one-quarter of the size predicted by the Department of Energy. “The cost challenge, the price of batteries today, puts a lot of these plug-in vehicles out of reach to consumers,” John Gartner, the study’s primary researcher, told HybridCars.com. We spoke with Gartner about the intertwined future for electric-drive vehicles and lithium batteries.

How does the relative size of the hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and EV markets affect lithium ion battery technology?

The hybrid market is likely to be the biggest market, but you’re talking about a much smaller battery that’s needed—1 to 2 kilowatt-hours for hybrid versus 15 to 16 or so for a plug-in hybrid (for about 40 miles of all-electric driving). Versus 24 to 32 kilowatt-hours for an all-electric vehicle (with about 100 miles of range).

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