The 2011 part is what makes this outstanding, the iphone had been released only 4 years before; the majority of lithium ion we were using was likely laptop batt

The 2011 part is what makes this outstanding, the iphone had been released only 4 years before; the majority of lithium ion we were using was likely laptop batteries and cell phones that lasted a week on a small battery. If anything, i would expect that recycling would become more commonplace with the larger scale of EV batteries, Electric bicycle batteries, and power stations. And the key part is, the advantage of lithium ion is that the same sized battery provies 10x as many charges (and more energy density) than its predecessors NIMH or NICD)