A new MIT study shows that the cost of lithium-ion batteries has fallen by 97 percent over the past three decades. This rate of improvement is much faster than many analysts had predicted and is comparable to that of solar photovoltaic panels, which some had considered to be an exceptional case. The new findings were reported in the journal Energy and Environmental Science, in a paper by MIT postdoc Micah Ziegler and Associate Professor Jessika Trancik.
Similar disagreements showed up in tracing other important aspects of battery development, such as the ever-improving energy density (energy stored within a given volume) and specific energy (energy stored within a given mass).
“These trends are so consequential for getting us to where we are right now, and also for thinking about what could happen in the future,” said Trancik, who is an associate professor in MIT