Lithium-ion battery prices fell about 99 per cent in three decades.
Lithium-ion batteries first went on sale in 1991, from a Sony and Asahi Kasei team. By 2024, cell prices had dropped by roughly 99 per cent. The same technology now powers phones, laptops and electric cars. Three scientists who created it shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
A lithium-ion battery stores energy by shuttling lithium ions between two electrodes that can absorb them into their structure, a process called intercalation. When charging, ions move into the negative electrode, usually graphite; when discharging, they flow back. The ions rock back and forth, which is why they are sometimes called rocking-chair batteries. Compared with older rechargeables, they pack more energy into less weight and space and last more cycles.
The story runs through three laboratories. In the 1970s M. Stanley Whittingham conceived intercalation electrodes and built the first rechargeable lithium battery of this kind, but it had safety problems and never went on sale. In 1980 John Goodenough found a much better positive electrode, lithium cobalt oxide. In 1985 Akira Yoshino replaced reactive lithium metal in the negative electrode with a carbon material, creating the first prototype of the modern design. A Sony and Asahi Kasei team commercialised it in 1991, and the three pioneers shared the 2019 Nobel prize.
Since then the improvements have compounded. From 1991 to 2018 energy density more than tripled, and between 1991 and 2024 prices for lithium-ion cells fell by about 99 per cent. In late 2024, global demand passed one terawatt-hour a year.
The weakness is safety. The electrolyte is flammable. Charge too fast or in the cold and metallic lithium can grow spiky dendrites that pierce the separator and short-circuit the cell, and damage or overheating can trigger thermal runaway. In 2006 about 10 million laptop batteries were recalled over metal contamination. Mining lithium and cobalt raises environmental and ethical concerns, pushing research towards solid-state, iron-phosphate and sodium-ion alternatives.
Source: Wikipedia — Lithium-ion battery · Text summarised from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
