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Comment by rsj_hn | Hacker News Reader

Pretty misleading title. In 1990 you could buy a AA duracel for 30 cents[0] update: older model. Alkaline may have been higher (see comments). Presently at Walmart you can get them for about 68 cents (24 pack for 16.24[1]). That's a nominal price increase of roughly 100%, although of course in real terms, it is flat (30 cents in 1990 were about 63 cents today). But those are alkaline batteries. This article is comparing the costs of prototypes of Lithium ion batteries in 1991 to mass production unit costs today. That unit costs fell massive from prototype to mass production stage is neither newsworthy nor interesting.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/20/style/consumer-s-world-co...

[1] https://www.walmart.com/browse/household-essentials/aa-batte...

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> In 1990 you could buy a AA duracell for 30 cents[0]. Presently at Walmart you can get them for about 68 cents (24 pack for 16.24[1]). That's a nominal price increase of roughly 100%, although of course in real terms, it is flat (30 cents in 1990 were about 63 cents today). But those are alkaline batteries

I think you're misreading your sources. The NYTimes article says zinc-carbon AAs cost $0.30 each in 1990 (which, IIRC, are pretty crappy). The article doesn't give a clear price for alkaline AAs, but it sounds like they used to cost about $0.50-$0.75 each back then ($1.02-$1.53 each in today's dollars).

Then there's also the fact that in 1990, probably the only alkaline batteries available to consumers were name-brands in smallish packages. Nowadays some store-brand batteries are pretty good and cheaper. For example, you can get AmazonBasics AA alkalines for $0.90 each in a 4-pack, and $0.45 each in a 20-pack [1]. These are apparently manufactured by Fujitsu [2].

[1] https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-Performance-Alkaline-Bat...

[2] https://onezero.medium.com/unraveling-the-secret-supply-chai...

That's a good point. I'll make the correction. It's still nothing near the percentage of the headline but is more accurate.

Did anyone really read the title thinking that the article was about alkaline batteries? I think not.

The title is not misleading. It's incomplete, as titles are by nature. Titles are not supposed to include all caveats and modifications. The title also doesn't say that the decline is measured in dollars. Probably the price has dropped much less or much more when measured in other currencies that have moved relative to the dollar. The title also doesn't mention whether it's adjusted for inflation. It also doesn't specify whether that's the price at the consumer level or the price paid by manufacturers. Whether it's when you buy the battery in America or somewhere else on the planet.

As long as a title doesn't deliberately seek to mislead, it's not misleading. The intended audience expected this to be about lithium ion batteries.

> Did anyone really read the title thinking that the article was about alkaline batteries? I think not.

Lithium-Ion were not in widespread use 30 years ago. So if we are just considering the price of Lithium-Ion, that would be the price from the first commercial product, which I expect was expensive for the time (it dropped in price around 30% in just a few years).

I read the title and thought it was battery capacity/$, not Lithium-Ion specifically.

> Did anyone really read the title thinking that the article was about alkaline batteries? I think not.

I did. For me "battery" without any context or other modifiers means some kind of consumer alkaline battery.

I did, mainly because alkaline batteries are the ones I use on a daily basis.

Semi-related rant : I'm baffled that most AA batteries don't display their capacity. It's literally the most important spec. Models vary between 400 and 3400 mAh!

If they have the word zinc on them, they're about 400 mah.

If they have the word alkaline, they're about 3000 mah.

And there isn't much in between. There are a few other weird chemistries, but they're never on the sweet price-performance curve, so avoid them.

That's not entirely true, capacity greatly depends on current draw and there is significant variability between brands (e.g. https://www.powerstream.com/AA-tests.htm)

Long time ago I stumbled upon a great website with a Wh/€ (the metric that really counts) for almost all brands, but I couldn't find it right now

Anything I own that's discharging at 2 Amps (!) no longer uses AA batteries. All those devices now have built in li-ion batteries.

AA batteries are relegated to clocks, TV remotes, doorbells, and other low drain devices.

In that scenario, all alkaline are pretty much the same.

I only use batteries to put them in socks and hit people.

In that scenario, all different battery types & chemistries are the same.

Batteries and coffee are the 2 supermarket things which amaze me. How is it possible there isn't some regulation on them having to display anything. Nescafe sometimes have "number of cups" displayed but sometimes they literally only have weight in grams. Next in line a hygienic products with also convoluted units but they seem to always have the "number of washes" at least.

Both the number of cups of coffee you get out of 200g of Nescafe and the number of washes you get out of 1 kg of washing powder will vary (depending on how you strong you like your Nescafe and how dirty your clothes are). The same is true for deodorant or shower gel. I think weight/volume measurements are fine for almost everything.

Packages for things like dishwasher tabs usually have a number on them (in addition to weight/volume, which is mandated to be on the packaging).

What other information besides weight (mass) in grams would you want? I mean sure, percentage of Arabica vs Robusta maybe, or lightness of roast, but the weight is exactly what you want and the most neutral and fair information regarding how much you get (and how much you get out of it).

Caffeine content labelling would be a big one. Could also be applied to things like cola.

Exactly! The most important question is how much caffeine is there. They market them as "strong" or "mild" and then they have the "new" "strong" and then they added the strength indicator. One has 4/5 dots the other one has 2/3 dots. Why not disclose caffeine content and let me decide how strong that is? Every other time I switch which coffee I drink or when I drink at friends house I get either headache or sleepy because I cannot maintain my caffeine intake

Replace 'price' with 'production cost', and factor in inflation, and maybe there's a decline over time even for alkaline batteries. But at such a low production cost, the shelf-space is likely to be the biggest factor at point of sale. That, and the mark-up will be set at whatever the market will bear.

> What’s promising is that prices are still falling steeply: the cost halved between 2014 and 2018. A halving in only four years.

I would imagine not all technologies drop in price the same amount as production increases (the "learning rate"), and at some point there might be limits to how much cheaper something really gets to produce.

The relevance relates to climate change. Our ability to scale battery production cheaply is pretty important for a range of green technologies. My main take-away was that we haven't hit those limits yet, lithium-ion batteries are continue to get cheaper as the capacity produced increases.

The price vs market size graph is a good summary: https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline

The article itself is clearly about something else, so maybe try to have the title fixed instead of shoehorning another topic into the discussion? Message hn@ycombinator.com and ask them to add "LiIon" to the title if you feel that it needs clarification. Just look what a mess these unrelated tangents on other battery chemistries have made in the comment section already.

Edit: I sent an email.

Edit: dang changed it, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27431665

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