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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

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.

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.