Here's my read on the tea leaves that hint at what's going on at Google: It looks to me like they're probably dumping ~$3 million/year into a battery lab, whic

Here's my read on the tea leaves that hint at what's going on at Google: It looks to me like they're probably dumping ~$3 million/year into a battery lab, which gives them state-of-the-art testing facilities and in-house expertise, and thus the ability to knowledgeably stay on top of what's going on in the battery space, what's real and what's not, and the strengths and weaknesses of different technologies. The probability that Google will invent something important is low, but the business value of having a battery group justifies the cost, given the importance of batteries in portable devices, electric cars, solar energy storage, etc.