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New batteries could make phones, drones, and electric cars last twice as long

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Re: New batteries could make phones, drones, and electric cars last twice as long

#41

Post by FooBarWidget »

mtgx wrote: post #34
SethMurphy wrote: post #28

If we can double battery life, hardware makers will double power usage. Phones are designed to last about a day on a full charge, and incremental battery improvement won't change that.

Good thing we have VR phones and 4k displays right around the corner to "take advantage" of this increase in battery capacity! Oh, and all the Pokemon Go-like games.

If battery life is really what people care about, even over features, then everbody would be using dumbphones instead of smartphones. So as much as people cynically complain about companies, battery life isn't what people value after all.

Re: New batteries could make phones, drones, and electric cars last twice as long

#42

Post by dghughes »

wizzard0 wrote: post #9
Retr0spectrum wrote: post #3

It seems like we're always hearing about the next big thing in battery technology, but they seem to stay in research forever, and never hit the consumer market. The most exciting part of this, is that they say the'll be in consumer devices early 2017. I'd love to have one in my quadcopter!

Note that having a compressed energy ready for rapid release is exactly equal to handling an explosive in your laptop :) There are a lot of experimental batteries that have like 5x capacity of the current Li-ion ones, but melt and explode when heated or crushed, which makes them effectively useless. This is one of the hardest problems in high-capacity batteries - to avoid "rapid unscheduled heat dissipation" and the…

The videos of punctured lithium-ion batteries violently spewing smoke and flames is alarming.

Then there is Li-Po which can ignite if charged too much or if left to drain to low. I also suspect they'll burn if you give them a stern look or make a hurtful comment.

Re: New batteries could make phones, drones, and electric cars last twice as long

#43

Post by matthewmorgan »

Kenji wrote: post #35
matthewmorgan wrote: post #6

Is it the case that the research was publicly-funded, but the profits are now being privatized?

The public funds things that result in private profits all the time. I.e. education, roads, etc. It's not really outrageous. It's the state's duty to provide a platform for its people to excel.

I was aware that public funds are sometimes spent on useful things. But is it right that the taxpayer absorbs the cost and risks of research, with the profits going into strictly private hands?

Re: New batteries could make phones, drones, and electric cars last twice as long

#44

Post by codecamper »

mtgx wrote: post #33

I remember SolidEnergy. We discussed it here on HN before. It was one of the, if not the most promising companies to have made "battery breakthroughs", a few years ago. And they also seem to be launching right on time (I believe they promised a 2016-2017 release date a few years ago). What's strange though is that Tesla always brags about how it has a list with "hundreds" of such battery breakthroughs, and that they…

You realize that Tesla is not making the batteries in the gigafactory. That'd be Panasonic.

It may have something to do with patents? Or maybe Tesla realizes making the cars is enough, leave the batteries up to others? Or, they have the market momentum now, so lets go for it, the world will bend to our will.

Re: New batteries could make phones, drones, and electric cars last twice as long

#45

Post by minikites »

matthewmorgan wrote: post #43
Kenji wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The public funds things that result in private profits all the time. I.e. education, roads, etc. It's not really outrageous. It's the state's duty to provide a platform for its people to excel.

I was aware that public funds are sometimes spent on useful things. But is it right that the taxpayer absorbs the cost and risks of research, with the profits going into strictly private hands?

In theory, we would tax those profits to pull some of that value back to society, but anti-tax sentiment is so high in the USA that we don't really do that.

Re: New batteries could make phones, drones, and electric cars last twice as long

#48

Post by smanuel »

Animats wrote: post #30
Retr0spectrum wrote: post #3

It seems like we're always hearing about the next big thing in battery technology, but they seem to stay in research forever, and never hit the consumer market. The most exciting part of this, is that they say the'll be in consumer devices early 2017. I'd love to have one in my quadcopter!

Yes, if we had all the "2x improvements" in batteries from press releases, batteries would be powering airliners by now. "Yet just as safe and long-lasting as the lithium ion batteries used in consumer electronics" is not happy-making as energy density increases. The existing lithium-ion technology just barely keeps from overheating and blowing itself up, and it takes about six safety devices to prevent that. (Latest…

Lithium-sulfur batteries look like the most possible candidate as the next incremental evolution of the lithium ion batteries. Lithium metal... not so much.

But I really hope for revolution in this space, rather than incremental changes. This will boost and give wings to so many other inventions.

Re: New batteries could make phones, drones, and electric cars last twice as long

#49

Post by supergreg »

Retr0spectrum wrote: post #3

It seems like we're always hearing about the next big thing in battery technology, but they seem to stay in research forever, and never hit the consumer market. The most exciting part of this, is that they say the'll be in consumer devices early 2017. I'd love to have one in my quadcopter!

Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/678/

Re: New batteries could make phones, drones, and electric cars last twice as long

#50

Post by legooolas »

dghughes wrote: post #42
wizzard0 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that having a compressed energy ready for rapid release is exactly equal to handling an explosive in your laptop :) There are a lot of experimental batteries that have like 5x capacity of the current Li-ion ones, but melt and explode when heated or crushed, which makes them effectively useless. This is one of the hardest problems in high-capacity batteries - to avoid "rapid unscheduled heat dissipation" and the…

The videos of punctured lithium-ion batteries violently spewing smoke and flames is alarming. Then there is Li-Po which can ignite if charged too much or if left to drain to low. I also suspect they'll burn if you give them a stern look or make a hurtful comment.

Yet you can take those on a plane but not a >100ml bottle of water.
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