I’ve been reading about battery breakthroughs for decades. And I remember when the latest in battery tech was alkaline, then Ni-Cd, then Li-Ion, and now LiPo. All of those have ended up in consumer products.
Also, the battery pack for a cell phone 30 years ago was about the same volume and weight of an entire smartphone, with a capacity of about 500 mAh. They are also far cheaper if you account for inflation.
Batteries have improved incapacity by about a factor of 10 and the cost per watt-hour has reduced by about 99% in the last 30 year. All without a single advancement in the technology, apparently.
/s
All without a single advancement in the technology, apparently.
What do you mean by that?
I would say there have been a great many advancements in technology. I mean, that’s what all these improvements are, right?
You skipped Ni-MH there, that was major for not having the memory problems of Ni-Cd. We still use those in AA and AAA rechargeable batteries.
Ni-MH production for EVs was effectively shutdown by Texaco and later Chevron through patent acquisitions.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_encumbrance_of_large_automotive_NiMH_batteries
A little pedantic note, LiPo is still a type of Li-Ion (maybe I got that right)
and the bigger recent breakthrough was LFP (Lithium iron phosphate / LiFePO4)
And probably safe to call Sodium-Ion and solid state the next big phases of development
