LFP ESS cell spot decline decelerated from −2.7% WoW to 0% WoW; EV cell prints moved less than 0.3% upward, inside assessment noise.
Application Grid
EV cells. SMM product-level prints, August 7: 100 Ah prismatic LFP at CNY 0.3995/Wh (+0.25% WoW); 50–60 Ah 5-series NMC at CNY 0.630/Wh (+0.24%); 144 Ah 6-series NMC at CNY 0.6245/Wh (+0.16%). All three inside 0.3%. Flat.
BESS cells. InfoLink, August 5: 280 Ah and 314 Ah LFP ESS cells at CNY 0.330–0.390/Wh, midpoint CNY 0.360/Wh, unchanged WoW. SMM 314 Ah index, August 7: CNY 0.3605/Wh, down CNY 0.0014/Wh (−0.39% WoW). Rate of decline: −2.7% WoW (July 29) to 0% WoW (August 5) on InfoLink; SMM's movement is inside its own assessment granularity.
Defense-relevant formats. No new public cell or pack $/kWh. No qualified-product price observation has surfaced in the tracked review.
Pack-level. No new US equipment $/kWh for July–August. Massachusetts Section 83E contracts filed July 2 covering 4,472 MWh disclose project capacities but no contract rate or equipment price. Illinois ISC price bids due August 26.
BESS: The Concession Stopped in One Week
Last issue named two observables that would test whether the selective Q4 concessions reported July 29 were broadening: whether SMM's Friday 314 Ah series followed InfoLink lower, and whether either boundary of InfoLink's range moved. SMM moved CNY 0.0014/Wh, which is functionally zero. InfoLink's boundaries held at CNY 0.330 and CNY 0.390. The concession impulse that produced −2.7% WoW exhausted itself in a single week.
So the second derivative went from −2.7% to 0% with nothing in between. What that tells a buyer depends on whether the buyer is reading the midpoint or the range.
The midpoint, CNY 0.360/Wh, is stable. The range spans CNY 0.060/Wh, or 16.7% of that midpoint. InfoLink's methodology describes after-tax transactions from nearly 20 manufacturers without disclosing which buyer classes populate which part of the range. A buyer transacting at CNY 0.330 and a buyer transacting at CNY 0.390 are in materially different procurement positions, and a midpoint constructed across both describes neither.
CNESA's H1 2026 data sizes the problem. Framework and centralized procurement, meaning the multi-project purchasing agreements run by the large Chinese developers and state-owned buyers, accounted for 60.1% of awarded ESS energy capacity in H1: 58.0 GWh of 96.1 GWh. CNESA's published winning-price averages (CNY 602.1/kWh for two-hour systems, CNY 541.3/kWh for four-hour) explicitly exclude that 60.1% along with behind-the-meter projects. The averages therefore describe the minority of awarded volume. CNESA publishes no separate price distribution for framework buyers, so the public data establishes the scale of framework purchasing but not what those buyers paid.
Treat CNY 0.360/Wh as a calibration point rather than a clearing price. Where a specific buyer sits inside the range is a function of volume commitment, contract structure, and relationship, none of which a market-level assessment resolves. Both statements hold at once: the concession impulse has stopped, and the 16.7% spread has not narrowed. A procurement team going into a lock-versus-float call needs the first for timing and the second for what it can realistically ask for.
Lithium: The Impulse Is Below Cell-Price Resolution
InfoLink reported battery-grade lithium carbonate down 2.8% WoW, from CNY 144,000/MT to CNY 140,000/MT. SMM's daily index printed CNY 142,926/MT on August 7, up 1.08% on the day. Different assessment clocks, not a contradiction.
The CNY 4,000/MT weekly decline translates to roughly CNY 0.002/Wh at the cell level, using the Argonne BatPaC sensitivity as a directional conversion. The sidebar develops that transmission math in full. The upshot: CNY 0.002/Wh sits below the resolution of either InfoLink's or SMM's cell-price assessments.
Two issues ago, flat cells against falling lithium supported a structural-impairment reading of pass-through. This week's lithium impulse is small enough that a cell-price response, if one exists, would be undetectable in the instruments we have. Whether pass-through is structurally impaired or merely lagged is still open, and this week's data cannot move it either way.
EV: Flat
Sub-0.3% upward movement across all three tracked SMM EV-cell products, which is indistinguishable from assessment noise at that magnitude. No trajectory change.
Defense and Korean ASP
No new defense-cell or mission-pack price observation. No change.
LG Energy Solution's Q2 2026 materials disclosed shipment mix and profitability but no cell or pack ASP in $/kWh. No change to the Korean contract-price assessment.
US-Landed Cost: Section 122 Expiry Drops the Stack by ~7%
Proclamation 11012's 10% temporary import surcharge expired at 12:01 a.m. EDT on July 24. No extension, modification, or replacement was enacted through August 8, per Congress.gov and Federal Register searches. This appears now rather than on July 24 because the proclamation required an Act of Congress to continue the surcharge; two weeks of legislative silence is what makes the expiry final.
28.4% as of July 24, 2026: 3.4% MFN + 25% Section 301. Section 122 surcharge (10%) expired; no extension enacted.
Removing 10 points from a stack that had been running at 38.4% (3.4% MFN plus 25% Section 301 plus 10% Section 122) cuts US-landed cost on Chinese LFP cells under HTS 8507.60.00 by about 7%. InfoLink's stated 40.9% comprehensive rate remains unreconciled with that arithmetic. The gap could be AD/CVD exposure, harbor maintenance fees, a different HTS subheading, or commercial allowances that InfoLink's methodology does not disaggregate. Until InfoLink discloses the build, use 28.4% for landed-cost modeling and treat the 40.9% figure as unverified.
- Illinois ISC price bids: The Illinois Power Agency's Indexed Storage Credit procurement targeting 1,038 MW of standalone storage has price bids due August 26, which would be the first public US buyer-side equipment price signal in the current tracking window.
- CNESA framework pricing: CNESA's H1 report established that framework and centralized procurement represented 60.1% of awarded ESS energy capacity but published no separate price distribution for that buyer class, leaving the cell-price accessibility question unresolved.
- InfoLink tariff decomposition: InfoLink's stated 40.9% comprehensive tariff rate on Chinese ESS cells entering the US remains 12.5 points above the confirmed post-Section 122 official-source stack, and the included instruments have not been disaggregated.
- DLA qualification status: QPL-32565 for MIL-PRF-32565 sealed rechargeable 6T lithium-ion batteries was updated August 6 with no qualified products or sources established, despite reported manufacturing-enhancement milestones at key developers.