alt Hacker NewsI don't have any idea of what this graph means.
It seems to be about percentage of the 2017 production. But does it measure value or volume?
Does it include lithium-based batteries? I believe they were only introduced to the market in the 1990s, but the graph goes back to 1975. Also, how many of these batteries are lead-acid based car batteries, disposable batteries for electronics, rechargeable or not, etc.
Replies
> But does it measure value or volume?
Value, 100 equals 2017 production. Actual figures [1].
> Does it include lithium-based batteries?
Yes [2]. Chemistry agnostic.
Note, however, that in 2017 “storage battery manufacturing (NAICS 335911) and primary battery manufacturing (NAICS 335912), were combined into a single 2022 NAICS category: battery manufacturing (NAICS 335910).” So comparing across that isn’t straightforward.
[1] https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g17/Current/ipdisk/g...
[2]
[x] https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g17/revisions/Curren...
its an index. Just shows rate of change more than units
I didn't expect this post to attract interest, as my HN submissions are one of my personal bookmarking tools (and in fact the only one that I've used for more than a few months without forgetting about it). Apologies for the obscurity!
This is the physical quantity of battery output, in terms of kWh or number of batteries, probably with some weighting to correlate lithium ion to, say, lead acid batteries (though these days this output is nearly only lithium ion, I would guess).
To truly understand what's going on, there are two other series needed which are linked in the related series:
- Producers' price index, how much the manufacturers are charging per unit of batteries https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PCU335911335911
- Value (in $) of shipped batteries (roughly price * volume): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A35DVS (thanks for the correction, laser!)
Also note that the time scale for all three are different, as they apparently started recording these at different times.
FRED data is super useful for a high level view of what's going on in various industries, I highly recommend playing with it if you're ever looking at investing or other spaces to work in!