Researchers used AI to design a new material that they used to build a working battery – it requires up to 70 percent less lithium than some competing designs.
The main problem is just that getting a product from a one-off in a lab to a cost-competitive mass-market product is hard and can take a lot of time, to say the least.
It’s less that these breakthroughs are bullshit, and more that commercializing these things is hard. The articles about the breakthroughs are often bullshit, though, or at least way too rosy.
I wonder if novelty products can be made with the one-off batteries. Imagine a $3000 flagship phone but it had 3x the battery capacity of the normal flagship phone while having the same weight and volume. I’d bet some people would pay for that.
The main problem is just that getting a product from a one-off in a lab to a cost-competitive mass-market product is hard and can take a lot of time, to say the least.
For example, Don Sadoway initially published about a molten metal battery in 2009. He gave a Ted talk in 2012. They’ve run into assorted setbacks along the way and are apparently just starting to deploy the first commercial test systems this year.
It’s less that these breakthroughs are bullshit, and more that commercializing these things is hard. The articles about the breakthroughs are often bullshit, though, or at least way too rosy.
I wonder if novelty products can be made with the one-off batteries. Imagine a $3000 flagship phone but it had 3x the battery capacity of the normal flagship phone while having the same weight and volume. I’d bet some people would pay for that.