/tech/ - Technology

What about me? Where's my battery pack that can be recharged to half full in 5 minutes?

>>13437
>I really did not expect big leaps in tech for batteries, batteries are over 200 years old, as such one would expect only incremental improvements.
If anything, battery advancements have been lagging behind. They should be much more advanced by now, and there's been a longstanding theory that part of the reason they aren't is that if they were massively improved then they'd sell less of them.

What kind of batteries are they, though? I won't be impressed by electric vehicles until they can store large amounts of energy in a way that doesn't require enormous amounts of scarce metals. Advancements in pure carbon batteries are what we should be looking towards.

>>13438
Depending on how they achieved this, other types of battery packs could receive the same benefits.

Cars can have very sophisticated battery management that includes things like active cooling, which is not practicle for most battery packs.

>>13439
>If anything, battery advancements have been lagging behind. They should be much more advanced by now,
Ok i've never heard that perspective before. I guess it's reasonable, batteries have been a weak-spot in many technologies.

>and there's been a longstanding theory that part of the reason they aren't is that if they were massively improved then they'd sell less of them.
I can see the logic, making batteries that wear out quickly, makes for a convenient way to introduce obsolescence. But there are a lot of people who still avoid battery operated devices where ever possible because they do not want to deal with "battery-headaches". If batteries were as robust as a "electricity bucket", they would likely see an overall increase in use. When LEDs had massive improvements adoption increase exponentially. If there really was something like cartel shenanigans, that probably was to their detriment.

I guess we'll see what's what. If they really shelved battery tech because it was too good, the Chinese will likely figure those out and just run with it. And the "tech-shelvers" will have egg on their face for having missed the opportunity to take the industry crown while they had the chance.

>>13441
>What kind of batteries are they, though?
Don't know. TBH haven't looked into it, i guess we'll have to wait until this gets reverse engineered.

>I won't be impressed by electric vehicles until they can store large amounts of energy in a way that doesn't require enormous amounts of scarce metals. Advancements in pure carbon batteries are what we should be looking towards.
Pure carbon batteries ? I'm having trouble imagining what kind of battery chemistry that would be.

I think you're waiting for sodium(Na) or aluminum batteries ? As far as metals go those are pretty abundant.
I mean Lithium is kinda rare, but it's not that bad. The politics around Lithium are a bigger problem, Lithium deposits are concentrated in certain regions, that creates geo-political struggle. Sodium and Aluminum can be had almost everywhere, so there is less potential for shitfuckery.

Also i think that the future of cars will not be in the form of personal vehicles. They'll become part of the infrastructure, … eventually. In the soon-ish future cars will become mostly rentals that substitute public transport. Once auto-pilots work flawlessly they will eventually shift towards turning into a component of a road network. Big cities will go for fully integrated transport systems that not only drive on auto-pilot but also optimize traffic flows to fix or at least reduce congestion. The org that builds roads, tunnels and bridges will also be the one that furnishes those with cars. I hope people will not start calling those "pods" The point of bringing this up is because in that environment it'll probably be rather easy to optimize away a lot of need for huge battery capacity. Personal vehicles will remain outside of cities, tho.

>>13445
Cars are a stupid highly inefficient form of mass transit. The future is the death of cars and sane rail transportation.

>>13447
Cars are not mass transit at all. But i do get what you mean, leveling up rail seems like the best bet for the future.

I wouldn't shit on this because what they are doing is leveling up batteries, which is a useful technology far beyond cars.

Also you are going a little far with the death of cars, they're the only viable option for people living outside of cities. We can't run trains in small villages.