dyna mo

that article is all about if and when a battery tech breakthrough will ever happen, a point i made in another tesla thread which you were quick to point out as wrong, i'm glad you are seeing the issue now.

the expert being interviewed hopes there may be a breakthrough within the next 30 years.

AO: Is it fair to say that the race to build a better battery is one of the most important business and science stories in the world right now?

SL: I think it is. In terms of science and engineering, artificial intelligence is one. Genomics, of course, is another. But I don’t put those in the same area as batteries or electrochemistry, because this is something that could really change everything on Earth. These other areas are purely commercial. Now, I could be biased because I do have a book in this area, so obviously I do have an opinion on the subject. That said, I think I can make a very firm case that batteries are one of the single most important engineering and scientific pursuits currently going on. It’s the Holy Grail.

AO: Given the sheer volume of capital chasing that Holy Grail, is it safe to assume that the widespread adoption of electric vehicles is a matter of when rather than if?

SL: You cannot say flatly that the battery guys are going to make a big breakthrough in the near future. But my own thinking, having spent two years in the lab and knowing what’s going on around the world now and the commercial need for this big breakthrough, is that it does happen – and it does happen in the next few decades.

That said, it doesn’t have to happen in the way some people are imagining. A big breakthrough can happen by twinning a hybrid model of battery – a super capacitor with a battery, or a fuel cell with a battery. These are all different forms of electrochemistry. There can also be a partial breakthrough in batteries and a partial breakthrough in manufacturing that, together, get you to where you need to be on the cost curve to be fully competitive with combustion.