In comparison, lead-acid battery packs are still around$150/kWh, and that’s 160 years after the lead-acid battery was invented. Thus, it may not be long before the most energy dense battery is also the cheapest battery. That has enormous implications for the future of lead-acid batteries. Another important consideration is a battery’s capacity.
Lead acid banks come in whatever size you order, and increasing capacity means either you buy another complete set to double up, or sell them and buy different ones. In either case, mixing any batteries of considerably different ages isn’t really wise, but lead acid is probably worse affected.
Thelithium-ion battery has emerged as the most serious contender for dethroning the lead-acid battery. Lithium-ion batteries are on the other end of the energy density scale from lead-acid batteries. They have the highest energy to volume and energy to weight ratio of the major types of secondary battery.
While they don’t cite base capacity costs for lithium-ion batteries versus lead-acid batteries, they do note in a presentation that a lead-acid batterycan be replaced by a lithium-ion battery with as little as 60% of the same capacity:
The key to this revolution has been the development of affordable batteries with much greater energy density. This new generation of batteriesthreatens to end the lengthy reign of the lead-acid battery. But consumers could be forgiven for being confused about the many different battery types vying for market share in this exciting new future.
Pietro P. Lopes et al. wrote an article entitled "Past, present, and future of lead–acid batteries" (1). According to WHO (world health organization), lead is a toxic metal whose widespread use has caused extensive environmental contamination and health problems in many parts of the world (2).