Prospects for Next-Generation Battery Technologies in the German Passenger Vehicle Market

Abstract

This paper analyzes current trends and advancements in battery technologies within the automotive sector and explores the potential impact of future innovations on the passenger vehicle market. It provides an overview of both present and next-generation battery technologies, focusing on key performance indicators such as cost and volumetric energy density. By integrating these technologies into different bottom-up calculated vehicle variants using the VECTOR21 vehicle technology scenario model, they are evaluated against each other within a predefined battery diversification scenario. Understanding the design of next-generation battery electric vehicles is crucial to reduce dependencies on raw mate-rials or supply chains and to assess the economic feasibility of potential technologies. The analysis reveals significant short-term market potential for vehicles equipped with low-cost cell chemistries like lithium iron phosphate or sodium-ion batteries. However, once vehicles with conventional powertrains are unable to meet the more stringent CO2 fleet limits, the sales prospects of models with energy dense Nickel-rich cell chemistries is expected to rise, as agents with demanding range requirements are about to switch to battery electric vehicle options. In order to achieve a relevant market potential for high-performance vehicles with solid-state batteries, cell costs of less than 100 EUR2020/kWh are considered necessary based on the currently implemented willingness-to-pay factors and the expected improvements in conventional batteries with liquid electrolyte.