It does come out. All the time. 5-8% per year, compounding.
There’s a toxic positivity in how the news presents battery tech advances that leads people to think it’s never coming. I’m not talking about stuff that’s in a lab that may or may not be practical for mass production. I’m talking about stuff starting to come out of factories today.
Some minor changes here and there, but the underlying makeup of the batteries and their shortcomings have been largely the same. Lithium and issues with dendrites that cause them to go bad/lose capacity after around 2,500 complete charge cycles. Most of the improvements have consisted of pulse charging different cells at a time in large batteries and trying to always keep the batteries in the 30% to 80% capacity range to extend the lifespan. Batteries last longer if you put one big enough in a vehicle to go 400 miles, but only allow for a 200 mile range.
It does come out. All the time. 5-8% per year, compounding.
There’s a toxic positivity in how the news presents battery tech advances that leads people to think it’s never coming. I’m not talking about stuff that’s in a lab that may or may not be practical for mass production. I’m talking about stuff starting to come out of factories today.
Some minor changes here and there, but the underlying makeup of the batteries and their shortcomings have been largely the same. Lithium and issues with dendrites that cause them to go bad/lose capacity after around 2,500 complete charge cycles. Most of the improvements have consisted of pulse charging different cells at a time in large batteries and trying to always keep the batteries in the 30% to 80% capacity range to extend the lifespan. Batteries last longer if you put one big enough in a vehicle to go 400 miles, but only allow for a 200 mile range.
5-8% per year is a doubling every 9-15 years. This is not a small change. That means we’ve doubled at least once since the first Tesla Roadster.
We haven’t doubled at all over the past 15 years, though. That’s completely false. Not in capacity or cycles.
They have doubled in capacity: https://rockymntstage.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/slide-2-battery-charts.png