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I'm kind of surprised how people are complaining how we hear about many battery break throughs yet we do not see any of them come to reality. Bridging science t

I'm kind of surprised how people are complaining how we hear about many battery break throughs yet we do not see any of them come to reality. Bridging science to reality through engineering takes time. Lots of time. Think of LEDs. We had those tiny dome shaped LEDs for the longest time. Yet it took over two decades to get to useful LEDS to consumers we have today (like CREE).

apsec112 8y ago
This isn't a question of lag time. The overwhelming majority of these "breakthroughs" never come to market at all, and Li-Ion batteries are largely the same as five years ago, save some modest cost reductions from economies of scale. The big factors here are a) PR-driven media overhype, b) people not understanding that the big challenge in batteries is not making a few very high-performance batteries, but in building factories that can churn them out economically at enormous scale.
- syntaxing 8y ago
  I agree that a lot these new technology is overhyped. That being said, majority (I would anecdotally argue more than 99%) of new founded science never make it to the market usually due to market limitation (too expensive to make) and adoption (fear of new technology). Battery technology can definitely use a boost but 5 years is nothing on a project scale for a new technology. Making something is super hard. Making something that the market adopts is even harder. Think about the digital camera. Minus the amount of time to develop the CMOS sensors, the "first" digital camera was made in 1975. It took 20 years before it was a consumer friendly device. It took another 20 for us to have the cellphone cameras today.
- rasz 8y ago
  >Li-Ion batteries are largely the same as five years ago Try 20. Libretto 50 (Pentium 75MHz palmtop) was released in ~1998. It was powered by two 1300 mAh 17670 cells. Today top of the line 17670 come in 1800 mAh. 20 years, less than 50% improvement.
  - hnuser1234 8y ago
    Panasonic makes a 3400mAh 18650, NCR-18650B, which is very similar in volume and 2.62x higher capacity, ~2.55x higher density than the 1998 17670 cells. Not to mention we also have power density-optimized cells now. High performance DIY drone batteries are available that are 4 cells in series, 14.8-16.8 V, 1300 mah, about 150 grams, and can deliver 100+ A (1500 W), and be recharged hundreds of times before significant degradation. 5 years ago, a similar sized package could've delivered maybe 50 A peak, and it would degrade much faster, only lasting a few dozen cycles at that load before losing significant (20%) capacity. They would "puff" and overheat much more easily.
hinkley 8y ago
Advice I got long ago is that if the industry has a trend and the new process seems to be five years ahead of the trend line? Expect to see it in five years or not at all. Solar panels, batteries, cpus, the time of big surprises is gone. Now it’s just people putting in hard work on the next thing that wasn’t quite cost effective enough the last go ‘round.
AngryData 8y ago
LEDs is a great example for a current comparison, people were talking about diodes decades ago for lighting, but it isn't until the last few years that they have reached cheap and efficient enough versions to really challenge the lighting marketplace, especially for growing plants. 10 years ago growing with diodes was expensive as hell for negligible returns over specialty growing bulbs. You buy LED tech released in the last year or two though and you are going to be throwing away or selling your old fixtures as a waste of electricity.
- eddieh 8y ago
  In fact it wasn’t until blue LEDs were created and it took over 20 years for the price to come down for economic viability. The scientists that worked on blue LEDs won the Nobel Prize in physics for their work. This came some 70 years after the first LEDs.

apsec112 8y ago

This isn't a question of lag time. The overwhelming majority of these "breakthroughs" never come to market at all, and Li-Ion batteries are largely the same as five years ago, save some modest cost reductions from economies of scale. The big factors here are a) PR-driven media overhype, b) people not understanding that the big challenge in batteries is not making a few very high-performance batteries, but in building factories that can churn them out economically at enormous scale.

syntaxing 8y ago
I agree that a lot these new technology is overhyped. That being said, majority (I would anecdotally argue more than 99%) of new founded science never make it to the market usually due to market limitation (too expensive to make) and adoption (fear of new technology). Battery technology can definitely use a boost but 5 years is nothing on a project scale for a new technology. Making something is super hard. Making something that the market adopts is even harder. Think about the digital camera. Minus the amount of time to develop the CMOS sensors, the "first" digital camera was made in 1975. It took 20 years before it was a consumer friendly device. It took another 20 for us to have the cellphone cameras today.
rasz 8y ago
>Li-Ion batteries are largely the same as five years ago Try 20. Libretto 50 (Pentium 75MHz palmtop) was released in ~1998. It was powered by two 1300 mAh 17670 cells. Today top of the line 17670 come in 1800 mAh. 20 years, less than 50% improvement.
- hnuser1234 8y ago
  Panasonic makes a 3400mAh 18650, NCR-18650B, which is very similar in volume and 2.62x higher capacity, ~2.55x higher density than the 1998 17670 cells. Not to mention we also have power density-optimized cells now. High performance DIY drone batteries are available that are 4 cells in series, 14.8-16.8 V, 1300 mah, about 150 grams, and can deliver 100+ A (1500 W), and be recharged hundreds of times before significant degradation. 5 years ago, a similar sized package could've delivered maybe 50 A peak, and it would degrade much faster, only lasting a few dozen cycles at that load before losing significant (20%) capacity. They would "puff" and overheat much more easily.

hinkley 8y ago

Advice I got long ago is that if the industry has a trend and the new process seems to be five years ahead of the trend line? Expect to see it in five years or not at all. Solar panels, batteries, cpus, the time of big surprises is gone. Now it’s just people putting in hard work on the next thing that wasn’t quite cost effective enough the last go ‘round.

AngryData 8y ago

LEDs is a great example for a current comparison, people were talking about diodes decades ago for lighting, but it isn't until the last few years that they have reached cheap and efficient enough versions to really challenge the lighting marketplace, especially for growing plants. 10 years ago growing with diodes was expensive as hell for negligible returns over specialty growing bulbs. You buy LED tech released in the last year or two though and you are going to be throwing away or selling your old fixtures as a waste of electricity.

eddieh 8y ago
In fact it wasn’t until blue LEDs were created and it took over 20 years for the price to come down for economic viability. The scientists that worked on blue LEDs won the Nobel Prize in physics for their work. This came some 70 years after the first LEDs.