If there is anyone on here who works in the battery production, EV, or utility industries, can you comment on exactly what is driving the dramatic cost/kWh declines? Every article I've read seems to imply that the cost declines are just being driven by economies of scale (massive fixed costs of plant construction being averaged out over large production runs) and learning economies (https://rameznaam.com/2014/09/30/the-learning-curve-for-ener...).
Apart from these two forces, are there any innovations in manufacturing processes or product components+architecture that are partly responsible for the decline?
I don't work in the industry and am not an expert, but I think a part of it in recent years is that lithium ion manufacturers have been figuring out how to get by with less cobalt in nickel-manganese-cobalt batteries.
If you read about 622 or 811 chemistries, those are the proportion of nickel, manganese, and cobalt. So, the older 622 batteries are 20% cobalt, and the newer 811 batteries are 10% cobalt. Manufacturers are trying to move to 5%, iirc.
(This doesn't apply to lithium iron phosphate, which doesn't use cobalt at all as far as I know.)
the OP references the bloomberg article which does say economies of scale, but also "thanks to improvements in manufacturing equipment and increased energy density at the cathode and cell level"
https://about.bnef.com/blog/battery-pack-prices-fall-as-mark...
It certainly helps when there is a small number of suppliers, one giant manufacturing center, and one nearby consumer. Removing all of the supply chain middlemen in search of buyers, repeatedly producing the same manufacturing machinery, and reducing shipping costs are each chipping away part of the cost.
Edit: grammar.