Lowering the cost of battery packs through R&D investments, manufacturing improvements, and economies of scale is a major consideration for bringing down the price of battery-powered electric vehicles (BEVs) and making them more competitive with gasoline-fueled internal combustion engines (Clean Technica, Financial Times). This question will be suspended on 30 June 2021 and resolved using the Mack Institute's analysis for 2022, which will replicate an approach for calculating the industry-wide average cost of Li-ion batteries published in a 2015 Nature Climate Change study. The Mack Institute found that there was "a 16% annual decline in the cost of battery packs between 2007 and 2019, and the industry-wide average cost of battery packs in 2019 was US$ 161 per kWh" (The Mack Institute).

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The question closed "Between $120 and $140 per kWh, inclusive" with a closing date of 1 January 2023.

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