🔋 Battery costs drop 99% as EVs become affordable

Lithium-ion battery costs fell from about $9,200 per kWh in 1991 to $78 today.

That brings a modern EV battery to roughly $5,000 versus nearly $600,000 for the same capacity decades ago.

The decline followed a steady learning curve. Since 1998, every doubling of global battery production cut costs by about 19%.

The gains came from incremental improvements across chemistry, manufacturing, and supply chains.

Early scale came from consumer electronics, not cars. Smartphones and laptops drove volume first, making batteries viable for larger use cases later.

Energy density also increased more than 3x over the same period.

📊 @tech