"You've seen the headlines: This battery breakthrough is going to change the electric vehicle forever. And then ... silence. You head to the local showroom, and the cars all kind of look and feel the same. WIRED got annoyed about this phenomenon. So we talked to battery technology experts about what's really going on in electric vehicle batteries. Which technologies are here? Which will be, probably, but aren't yet, so don't hold your breath? What's probably not coming anytime soon?"
""It's easy to get excited about these things, because batteries are so complex," says Pranav Jaswani, a technology analyst at IDTechEx, a market intelligence firm. "Many little things are going to have such a big effect." That's why so many companies, including automakers, their suppliers, and battery-makers, are experimenting with so many bit parts of the battery. Swap one electrical conductor material for another, and an electric vehicle battery's range might increase by 50 miles."
Media hype about dramatic battery breakthroughs often fades because showroom cars remain similar despite many laboratory advances. Battery systems are complex, and small component or assembly changes can yield large effects on range and cost. Automakers, suppliers, and battery makers experiment with many incremental innovations, such as conductor materials and pack architectures. New ideas require scientists to invent, suppliers to execute, and manufacturers to rigorously test for safety and reliability. Economic viability is a constant filter. Many promising lab breakthroughs never reach production, and some useful tweaks can take a decade or more to appear in road cars.
Read at WIRED
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