The battery of the next 2025 Ram 1500 REV would be worth 32% of its selling price
The battery production cost of electric vehicles is a big challenge for automobile manufacturers. This is why they are trying, by all means, to advance new technologies, such as LFPs and solid-state batteries, in order to reduce costs to a minimum.
However, another factor could make it possible to lower the price of batteries: their dimensions. According to a recent study conducted by Visual Capitalist based on information drawn from the intelligence of Benchmark Minerals the gigantic nickel-based lithium-ion batteries that will power tomorrow’s electric pickup trucks will represent more than 30% of the vehicle’s price.
The most expensive, the RAM 1500 BEV 2025
For the study, 6 electric vehicles from different segments were analyzed, i.e. the Ram 1500 BEV 2025the 2025 Cadillac Escalade IQ, the 2023 Tesla Model S, the 2022 Rivian commercial van, the 2023 Ford Mustang Mach-E and the 2023 Volkswagen ID.4.
What we see in this study is that the dimensions of the battery affect its price, but there is also its composition. For example, if the NCM (nickel cobalt manganese) battery in the Ram 1500 BEV — which has a usable capacity of 229 kilowatt hours — costs US$25,853, which represents 32% of the vehicle’s selling price, the NCA (nickel cobalt aluminum) battery ) of the Cadillac Escalade IQ (200 kilowatt hours) costs US$22,540, or 17.3% of its selling price.
Indeed, we see that NCM batteries cost less. In fact, they would be around US$112.7 per kilowatt hour, compared to US$120.3 for the NCA battery.
However, things become even more interesting when we look at the cost of LFP (lithium iron phosphate) batteries. In the case of the Ford Mustang Mach-E, the LFP battery, whose usable capacity is listed at 70 kilowatt hours, costs only US$6,895, which represents only 16% of its selling price. This is also the cheapest battery in the study.
On the other hand, even if the Volkswagen ID.4 uses an NCM battery, the fact that its capacity is only 62 kilowatt hours means that its price remains low, at US$8,730.
The small LFP battery
We can therefore deduce from this study that, to lower the cost of batteries to a minimum, automobile manufacturers will have to juggle between their dimensions and their composition. In the best of all worlds, an LFP battery, whose usable capacity would not exceed 70 kilowatt hours, would allow the manufacturer to maintain an overall reasonable price scale due to lower production costs.
In short, in an electric world, pickup trucks and large SUVs will bring us more energy headaches, because the bigger they are, the more expensive they will be to build!
