From The Battery boom Begins by Elizabeth Fry 9/9/14 thanks to...

From The Battery boom Begins by Elizabeth Fry 9/9/14 thanks to cannacorp on the OGI thread. Hope it hasn't already been posted.

Disrupting old industries Few can see a time when the bulk of the world’s power is generated by solar But, what people miss are the huge changes in that are happening right now with energy storage. What’s important is we are on the brink of new battery technology which will slash battery prices and make solar affordable. That’s the tipping point for investors. Of course, batteries are about more than just solar; there are other ways investors can profit from the energy sector. The big next step in battery demand will come from electric cars and specifically automakers like BMW, Porsche and Tesla which are all pushing electric and hybrid cars. Even Bentley will produce one. BMW said it would increase its battery orders from Samsung SDI by a quarter from 2016. Bringing down battery costs is central to making electric vehicles affordable for the mass market. That’s why everything changes with Tesla’s plan to build a massive battery production facility which will produce more lithium-ion battery capacity than exists in the entire world today. Such will be the volume produced by the new Gigafactory that 30% will be immediately knocked off the cost of its battery packs in 2017. That's the year Tesla plans to start production of its lower-cost electric car. Tesla models will then have the same sticker price as a next generation BMW 5 series. Electric cars and hybrids currently make up 4% of US car sales. Cutting the cost of producing lithium-ion batteries should boost sales dramatically. A boom in the use of electric vehicles is estimated to push the energy storage market to $50 billion by 2020. So in ten years the battery market will have quadrupled and that’s enough of a disruptive innovation to scare every single utility and every carmaker out there. These cars, which require so much more electricity, will drive up the demand up for solar disrupting a second industry – one that hasn't changed in a hundred years. Elon Musk’s plans to develop the Gigafactory are one of the most exciting stories around. He's putting himself front and centre of this move to use solar as a reliable source of power for everything from cars to aircraft. Everyone is going to need batteries. Tesla's plans to disrupt a trillion dollar car industry as well as a trillion dollar electric utility industry, stops and starts with producing cheap battery packs that allow solar energy to be discharged at night. No question, Musk has his eyes on more than cars. The car market is just the first hurdle. How long will it take? The story will take time to filter through. It’s not as if everyone will want a personal power plant just like not everyone will switch to an electric car overnight. But as with the iPhone, once the early adopters start buying, everyone else will follow. Remember smartphones were only released in 2007; penetration has taken less than seven years. The investment opportunity means looking all the way through the battery supply chain to the raw materials and processing companies. A typical high powered lithium ion battery contains nickel, graphite and lithium, as well as copper and aluminum. Demand for these metals could soar. Materials suppliers like Sumitomo Metal Mining could see a new a demand driver for nickel which makes up 40% of a lithium ion battery. The sheer volume of materials eventually needed could affect both the metal miners as well battery cell manufacturers like Panasonic and Samsung SDI. We think batteries are on the cusp of enormous growth as costs fall to levels that make electric cars and energy storage economical. There are now more than 100,000 electric cars on America's roads. Two and a half years ago that number was just 345. High demand from China for electric cars tells us that the battery industry, and the eco-systems surrounding it, is poised for exponential growth as it infiltrates both the energy and the transport sectors. Technology is moving faster than we ever expected. We've already seen that happen with solar generation. Costs fell fast and efficiency improved a whole lot quicker than most thought possible. Scientific leaps in the battery industry underscore the fundamental change in the consumption and production of energy. The scale of the change here is almost too large to grasp.