Tim: You will be surprised (in a good way) how cheap it will be for the ER battery

[onuiebvbevnulib]

Video queued to start of discussion. Just press play.

More than one battery option SR (standard range) & ER (extended range)



Will the ER battery be $10,000 like the F-150 Lightning?

Ford Answer: NO, It will be significantly less than that

Tim: (with a look) You will be surprised (in a good way) how cheap it will be for the ER battery

 

[thum]

Video queued to start of discussion. Just press play.

More than one battery option SR (standard range) & ER (extended range)



Will the ER battery be $10,000 like the F-150 Lightning?

Ford Answer: NO, It will be signoficantly less than that

Tim: (with a look) You will be surprised (in a good way) how cheap it will be for the ER battery

 

[WXman]

I'll do the same thing that I did with Lightning. That is, look at the amount of extra range you get for the price you gotta' pay. Let's say hypothetically the ER battery is $4,995. But let's say it only results in an additional 40 miles of range. Is it worth it? I would say no. In that case I'd much rather put the money toward better options and features. The current Mach-E falls into this camp actually. You can buy an ER pack for a substantial cost but you barely get any additional range so it's not worth it.

 

[commadorebob]

Ford needs to offer three options: SR, ER, and RE.
SR = Standard battery
ER = Larger battery
RE = Standard battery with a small range-extender generator where the frunk sits.

 

[thum]

I'll do the same thing that I did with Lightning. That is, look at the amount of extra range you get for the price you gotta' pay. Let's say hypothetically the ER battery is $4,995. But let's say it only results in an additional 40 miles of range. Is it worth it? I would say no. In that case I'd much rather put the money toward better options and features. The current Mach-E falls into this camp actually. You can buy an ER pack for a substantial cost but you barely get any additional range so it's not worth it.

A $5000 battery add should be around 30-40 kWh (with a $3k-4k cost to Ford) which should net another 100-120 miles on the highway. The added weight will negate some of the city driving added range, but weight isn’t a huge factor in highway range. So the city range might also only increase by 100-120 miles.

 

[onuiebvbevnulib]

For those who are quoting the ER battery at $5,000. That is at the highest end of the range.

A cost that is significantly less than $10,000 generally refers to a monetary value of $1,000 to $5,000 or less—representing a price tag that is a small fraction (10% to 50%) of the $10,000 benchmark.

My guesstimate is $2,500.

The reason is this:

OEM cost for a 400-volt EV battery pack averages $80 to $100 per kWh for Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) and $100 to $130 per kWh for Nickel Manganese Cobalt (NMC). For a typical mid-sized 60 kWh to 80 kWh pack, total raw OEM pack production costs range from $4,800 to $8,000 (LFP) versus $6,000 to $10,400 (NMC).

Cost Breakdown Per kWh (Pack Level)

• • LFP Pack Cost: $80 – $100 / kWh
  • NMC Pack Cost: $100 – $130 / kWh
  • Voltage Impact: Operating at ~400 volts is standard for mainstream vehicle architectures. The nominal voltage architecture itself scales cleanly with cell arrangement (series stacking), meaning the voltage level changes assembly complexity only slightly compared to chemistry choices, which dictate the fundamental raw material price floor.

and this:

A nominal 400-volt battery pack using Nickel Manganese Cobalt (NMC) typically achieves a higher energy capacity (kWh) than a Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) pack of the exact same physical size and weight. Because NMC has a higher energy density (~150 to 220+ Wh/kg) compared to LFP (~90 to 160 Wh/kg), an identical volume and weight constraint will yield roughly 15% to 25% more kilowatt-hours in an NMC configuration.

Voltage and Energy Density Differences

• • NMC (Nickel Manganese Cobalt):
    • Higher cell-level nominal voltage (~3.6V to 3.7V per cell).
    • Higher gravimetric and volumetric energy density.
    • A standard-size 400V EV pack typically ranges from 60 kWh to over 100 kWh depending on the allocated vehicle space.
  • LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate):
    • Lower cell-level nominal voltage (~3.2V per cell).
    • Lower energy density requires more physical space and mass to reach higher kWh targets.
    • A standard-size 400V pack constrained to the same physical dimensions usually caps out lower, commonly ranging from 40 kWh to 75 kWh

The weight of either pack is around the same (990 lbs for LFP vs 925 for NMC).

The NMC pack should produce 20 kWh more than the LFP pack (see above).

OEM pack production costs range from $4,800 to $8,000 (LFP) versus $6,000 to $10,400 (NMC)

The OEM cost of the NMC pack vs the LFP pack should be only $1,200 to $2,400 more.

Taking the middle the OEM price increase would be $1,800 allowing Ford to profit by $700 while selling for $2,500.

 

[thum]

For those who are quoting the ER battery at $5,000. That is at the highest end of the range.



My guesstimate is $2,500.

The reason is this:



and this:



The weight of either pack is around the same (990 lbs for LFP vs 925 for NMC).

The NMC pack should produce 20 kWh more than the LFP pack (see above).



The OEM cost of the NMC pack vs the LFP pack should be only $1,200 to $2,400 more.

Taking the middle the OEM price increase would be $1,800 allowing Ford to profit by $700 while selling for $2,500.

So your thought is they would do the same volume/weight and the difference between SR and ER is LFP vs NMC. Like what they did with the MachE.

My thought was that they would have the ER as filling the volume and the SR as partial volume. Both running LFP but the SR with 55-60 kWh and ER with 85-90 kWh. Similar to the Silverado that just uses different sized NMC packs for different ranges. 90 kWh being about the max I’ve seen for an LFP battery similar to the R2S.

Could go either way, I guess it just depends on how much weight the truck can handle.

 

[WXman]

Isn't the upgrade on Mach-E $4k? And it results in nowhere near 100 miles of additional range.

 

[jsus]

Isn't the upgrade on Mach-E $4k? And it results in nowhere near 100 miles of additional range.

$4,750-$5,250 for ~60 miles, 15 kWh usable. Note that Select requires eAWD to unlock ER. Premium can be optioned with RWD ER.

Premium:

Select:

 

[Snakebitten]

The Sierra EV Denali is an $8000 MSRP jump from a Extended Range (~180KWH) to the Max Range (~215KWH)
If you are going to USE that additional 35KWH, I'm sure it's worth it. But I think for most folks, the ER is the sweet spot for value equation.

Not LFP, of course.
It's already #9000 rolling down the road empty. If it were LFP you'd probably have to have a CDL?

Whatever it turns out to be with the UEV platform vehicle, I don't think comparisons with Lightning, Mach-E, or even GM products are apples/apples.

This vehicle is far more vertically integrated. It's a Ford plant building Ford LFP cells. And battery cost is going to be considerably less per KWH today, for Ford, than it was for their previous EV ventures.

I hope the "Extended Range" battery in the Fathom is LFP as well. LFP range is real range because you can use all of it as often as suits you.
And I would love it if it were at least 25KWH bigger.

 

[mark]

The LFP has an upgrade from CATL that is included in the Ford liscensing agreement, from what I’ve researched. The magnesium/ aluminum/zinc catalyst would be a better choice given it is just a formulation change for the battery plant. They would have no process changes and stay with the more economical chemisrty/ materials platform. The claimed improvement would not require a larger battery nessecarily, from what i’ve read. It may increase the energy density as well as recharge time. I asked Riley about this and as expected got no reply. Repeat, speculation on my part, no sourcing from Ford.

 

[mark]

https://insideevs.com/news/793596/catl-shenxing-gen3-lfp-battery-charging-speed/

I lack the skill set to open the link to CATL.

 

[ScooterAsheville]

When Tim says (of the battery upgrade) "cheap" and "you'll be pleasantly surprised", I'm thinking of what I'd consider "cheap" and "a pleasant surprise". And I come up with the vicinity of $3,500.

On the new Kia EV3, a battery upgrade along with a whole next trim level (lots of goodies) is $5,000. That sets the bar for me.

 

[mark]

Hope to see a trim with ER and AWD.

 

[onuiebvbevnulib]

Hope to see a trim with ER and AWD.

I believe ER Battery and AWD will be the only factory options (along with paint color) that will be offered as the base Fantom is already pretty loaded.

There may be some dealer installed products also available.

I like ER and AWD at $5,000 additional cost mentioned above.