It mentions lasting for 200-1200 cycles, which (besides a suspiciously large range compared to Li-ion's 500-1000 cycles) is not better on all mentioned metrics.

If it's like Li-Ion, that's full discharge and charge cycles, not every top off. So if these batteries are sufficiently higher capacity, it might make up for the difference. 200+ charges is enough if each charge lasts 2x longer or more.

The above comment didn't mention cycles but I should have said "similar or better." Cycles are comparable, seems likely it's just more sensitive to poor management. With about twice the capacity, fewer cycles are more tolerable anyway.

In any case, this looks like a very practical battery with serious advantages over lithium-ion.

If you have double the energy capacity and the same cycle. Your phone will also last roughly double the time at the same energy usage. That is probably good enough for most things.

Amprius technology will not magically drop in price as much as people think. Some manufacturing methods don't just scale and become cheap.

Their large facility planned is still tiny in terms of battery factories.

This will remain an expensive niche product.

No small company is going to suddenly build a gigafactory. But 5GWh, if they manage it, is not that small. One of Tesla's gigafactories is 37GWh.

These batteries will target the aviation market which will be willing to pay much more than the automotive segment. EV's need a certain weight for safety and once a battery pack goes lower than that weight the incentive for buying lighter batteries quickly fades.

Starting with aviation while they're at low volume makes sense. But most EVs weigh more than the equivalent gasoline cars, and have shorter range than many people are comfortable with, so I think there's plenty of opportunity for silicon-anode batteries in cars.

Personally I'd like to drive an EV 400 miles to visit my brother without stopping to charge, which realistically requires at least a 500-mile range, preferably 600 (so 80% to 20% is about 400). Charging time of less than ten minutes would make that less important to me, and conveniently, these batteries provide that too.