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| RandyT:
--- Quote from: Zebidee on August 30, 2022, 05:12:46 pm ---It may take less than decades. Right now, there's a lot of people researching better and safer batteries. Better batteries will not only be great for our e-bikes, but also our cars and power grids and everything else. Save the planet stuff, the future is electric and renewables. --- End quote --- The research phase of the Lithium battery was happening in the mid-70's, or approximately 30 years before they became widely available, reasonably priced and relatively safe (they really still are not that safe...ask Samsung and people who vape :) ) Even if they come up with something amazing in the lab, it will be many years before it is brought to market and manufacturing is ramped up to supply demand. Large companies don't jump ship quickly either, when they already have the manufacturing facilities in place and they are still able to make money. I remember well the transition from NiMh to Li-Ion. It spanned years and was a very gradual shift due to the higher costs involved. Many portable tools used NiMh well after portable electronic devices shifted to Li-Ion. You can't sell a drill with a $300 battery in it, at least not to very many :) So will a new technology take the same amount of time? I guess it depends. If it's proven, easily produced and dirt cheap to manufacture, they will be falling over themselves to get it to market. But if it's something which only works on the surface of Mars and requires a container in a lab which mimics those conditions, it'll NEVER see the light of day in consumer goods. I'm not saying that there aren't some smart people working on the problem and that we don't have better technology now to help it along. But very bad things can happen with this type of tech when it's rushed to market and even when it's not as in the case of Li-Ion. It took quite a while just for the average consumer to understand and accept the risks of using them in order to receive their benefits. |
| fallacy:
I don't know anything about batteries. Why are double AA still being made the same way from 40 years ago and why do the rechargeable ones seem to discharge at a much faster rate than the non rechargeable ones? Look how far they have come with LED lights. If you would have told me 20 years ago they were going to come out with lights that hardly use any power, produce no heat and never burn out I would have thought you were smoking crack. |
| Zebidee:
I believe it will take less than a decade to get solid electrolyte lithium batteries into things like our cars - because we need it now. Climate change demands it. Companies are making them now, all it needs is for the cost balance to shift. Also, in a world where people get a new car more than once every decade, it will be easier to transition to the new tech. I used to work in innovation and industry development/policy, and remember talking to excited researchers who were developing Bluetooth and wireless LANs (different groups of people) in the late 1990's. It all seemed like stuff of fantasy at the time. Now these techs are everyday and all around us, and have been for a long time. People can become fast adopters when there is a compelling reason to. As for AA batteries... they are a standard but they do change, all that stays the same is the package size and voltage. |
| dmckean:
--- Quote from: fallacy on August 30, 2022, 11:04:12 pm ---I don't know anything about batteries. Why are double AA still being made the same way from 40 years ago and why do the rechargeable ones seem to discharge at a much faster rate than the non rechargeable ones? Look how far they have come with LED lights. If you would have told me 20 years ago they were going to come out with lights that hardly use any power, produce no heat and never burn out I would have thought you were smoking crack. --- End quote --- Lithium batteries being able to discharge at a faster rate (provide more power) was one of their design goals. Alkaline batteries were designed to be shelf stable for more than a decade. A lot of money went into both of those projects and they will not be easy to best. |
| RandyT:
--- Quote from: Zebidee on August 30, 2022, 11:26:39 pm ---I believe it will take less than a decade to get solid electrolyte lithium batteries into things like our cars - because we need it now. Climate change demands it. Companies are making them now, all it needs is for the cost balance to shift. --- End quote --- Not everyone, not even all climate scientists, support the idea of "climate change". One little blip on the 9,941°F surface of that ball of fire in the sky and we pay for it no matter what happens on this planet. So "compelling" is relative. Probably more compelling is the possibility of running out of other fuel sources as the population increases. Fortunately, there is still some time with regard to that issue to find a solution. --- Quote ---Also, in a world where people get a new car more than once every decade, it will be easier to transition to the new tech. --- End quote --- Unless there are some drastic changes for the better coming down the pike, that world is gone...at least for a while. --- Quote ---As for AA batteries... they are a standard but they do change, all that stays the same is the package size and voltage. --- End quote --- That's what drives me nuts about lithium batteries. That 3.7v makes them difficult to wedge into the existing 1.5v battery standard. By the time circuitry is added into the battery casing to make it compatible, the amount of space for storage ends up making it mostly moot to bother with. It almost always requires a special design or some other creative solutions to utilize. |
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