Yes so the increase per pack was 5.40 in 18 months 4 years ago and with the rising costs of the raw materials going up 200% in the last 2 years I'm sure the price would have gone up more than .90 cents per cell in the last 4 years. Bottom line having only one company supplying the RC racing industry isn't really good as they can dictate the price they want.
Another thing I have noticed since IB has become the cell of choice is that there is an abundance of great cells on the market which means the average racer paying his way to a major race has access to packs that are as good in voltage as the top guys. When we did GP and before that Sanyos there was a bigger fluctuation in average voltage and IR than what we see now with IB. This meant that when there was a batch of cells that had better voltage and lower IR these were often kept for team drivers. Now with IB cells we will only save packs a few weeks prior to a major race as we know that every lot will always have plenty of good voltage cells as every cell within a lot are very close.