America could make cheaper battery cells than China before the end of the decade, thanks to President Joe Biden’s signature climate law, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, which tracks battery prices and trends.
“The Inflation Reduction Act has truly been transformational in this space,” said Shivangee Chauhan, a batteries analyst at Benchmark, in a recent post the company published. “Suddenly the U.S. producers are the cheapest producers in the entire world.”
Benchmark’s analysis focused on cells, the basic unit of batteries. Currently, U.S. factories make cells at an average price of $111.18 per kilowatt-hour. By 2029, that could drop to $76.80 per kWh. That, Benchmark said, “would make American gigafactories the lowest cost operations globally.”
But Benchmark’s optimism about the U.S. market partly hangs on the generosity of a tax credit in the Inflation Reduction Act. President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to repeal the climate law, though some Republicans are in favor of preserving parts of it.
