Re:Lithium-air battery research shows potential paths to nex...
by mtgx on Saturday October 31, 2015 @12:23PM
(#10483126)
> But a commercially viable Li-air battery is still “at least a decade away."
Eh. Why even bother talking about it then? (especially in the context that we've seen tens of these announcements in the past decade).
What all of these "breakthroughs" talk about is that they managed to "double the density for the same cost" or whatever, for only a pin-size battery. Anything scaled beyond that and it starts losing its advantages. That's why we hear about so many battery breakthroughs only to never hear about most of them again. Because when they start getting close to actually making a battery product for the market, they realize it's actually not very competitive at all.
So wake me up when they can make at least a 2,000 mAh smartphone battery that's ready to be commercialized within a year (basically they'd just need to find a customer and start mass production).
Eh. Why even bother talking about it then? (especially in the context that we've seen tens of these announcements in the past decade).
What all of these "breakthroughs" talk about is that they managed to "double the density for the same cost" or whatever, for only a pin-size battery. Anything scaled beyond that and it starts losing its advantages. That's why we hear about so many battery breakthroughs only to never hear about most of them again. Because when they start getting close to actually making a battery product for the market, they realize it's actually not very competitive at all.
So wake me up when they can make at least a 2,000 mAh smartphone battery that's ready to be commercialized within a year (basically they'd just need to find a customer and start mass production).
Until then it's all fairy tales.