Battery Market Intelligence · Data period 2025 (BloombergNEF/IEA) · Last reviewed 2026-09-16
| Geography | Global |
|---|---|
| Year | 2024–2026 (as sourced per figure) |
| Battery scope | Lead-acid + lithium-ion; scope stated per figure |
| Unit | US$ / yuan / TWh — stated per figure |
| Data source | IEA, customs/industry data, research estimates (see Sources) |
| Segment | Price | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| Global average pack | $108/kWh | −8% in 2025; −93% since 2010 |
| China average | $84/kWh | −13% in 2025 |
| Stationary storage pack (benchmark low) | ~$50/kWh | Record low |
Source: BloombergNEF battery price survey, 2025.
Three forces compound: LFP adoption (a lower-cost chemistry taking share from NMC), overcapacity (China's ~80% capacity share producing more cells than demand absorbs), and price competition among cell makers fighting for volume. Lower input costs add a fourth. The result is a sustained price decline that has erased most of the battery's cost premium since 2010.
Lead-acid prices do not follow the lithium curve. As a mature commodity with established margins, lead-acid pricing is stable and tied to lead metal costs — it does not halve in a decade the way lithium has. This divergence is why lithium keeps encroaching on lead-acid applications: the gap in lifetime cost narrows every year even where lead-acid still wins on upfront price.
The compound rate: from about $1,160/kWh (2010) to $108/kWh (2025), the 15-year compound decline is roughly −15% per year — a cumulative fall of about 90%. A single year's decline looks incremental; compounded over 15 years it reshapes an industry. (Arithmetic from the BloombergNEF survey endpoints.)
| Year | Pack price (approx.) |
|---|---|
| 2010 | ~$1,160/kWh |
| 2015 | ~$350/kWh |
| 2020 | ~$137/kWh |
| 2023 | ~$139/kWh (the plateau year) |
| 2025 | ~$108/kWh |
BloombergNEF survey values, rounded — the 2010s collapsed on scale; the 2023 plateau shows the curve is not monotonic.
My take: The most consequential price trend in batteries is not the 8% annual fall — it is the 93% cumulative collapse since 2010, because that curve is what is rewriting which applications lithium can economically enter, year after year.
The reasoning: A single year's decline looks incremental; the decade curve is a structural shift. Buyers who anchor on today's $108/kWh miss that the trend has already pushed lithium past one lead-acid application after another, and the storage $50/kWh benchmark shows where it goes next.
This is the author's editorial view, not investment or purchasing advice.
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