麻省理工学院(MIT)的研究人员最近进行的一项分析表明，在过去30年里，锂离子电池技术的成本急剧下降。他们还预测，在不久的将来可能会出现进一步的大幅下跌。

According to Jessika Trancik, an associate professor at MIT’s Institute for Data, Systems and Society who conducted the analysis, the cost of these batteries has dropped by 97 percent since they were first commercially introduced in 1991. “This rate of improvement is much faster than many analysts had claimed and is comparable to that of solar photovoltaic panels, which some had considered to be an exceptional case,” she points out.

“While it’s clear that there have been dramatic cost declines in some clean energy technologies, such as solar and wind, when [we] started to look into the decline in prices for lithium-ion batteries, we saw that there was substantial disagreement as to how quickly the costs of these technologies had come down,” says Trancik. “Similar disagreements showed up in tracing other important aspects of battery development, such as the ever-improving energy density (energy stored within a given volume) and specific energy (energy stored within a given mass).

特兰西克解释说:“这些趋势对我们取得现在的成就，以及思考未来可能发生的事情都是至关重要的。”“尽管大家都知道，电池成本的下降是近期电动汽车销量增长的推动因素之一，但目前尚不清楚这种下降幅度有多大。

“通过详细的分析,我们能够确认是的,锂离子电池技术改进的成本,利率与太阳能技术,特别是光伏模块,通常被认为是一种清洁能源创新的黄金标准,”Trancik说。

特兰西克指出:“清洁能源创新的这些趋势对我们取得现在的成就非常重要，我们开始看到汽车的快速电气化，我们看到可再生能源技术的快速增长。”“当然，应对气候变化还有很多事情要做，但这真的改变了游戏规则。”

卡内基梅隆大学(Carnegie Mellon University)机械工程副教授文卡特•维斯瓦纳坦(Venkat Viswanathan)补充道:“电池成本决定了电动汽车与内燃机汽车的价格平价。”维斯瓦纳坦与麻省理工学院的分析没有任何关联。“因此，预测电池成本的下降可能是确保准确了解电动汽车采用情况的最关键挑战之一。”