
New batteries could make phones, drones, and electric cars last twice as long - SergeAx
http://news.mit.edu/2016/lithium-metal-batteries-double-power-consumer-electronics-0817
======
Retr0spectrum
It seems like we're always hearing about the next big thing in battery
technology, but they seem to stay in research forever, and never hit the
consumer market.

The most exciting part of this, is that they say the'll be in consumer devices
early 2017.

I'd love to have one in my quadcopter!

~~~
wizzard0
Note that having a compressed energy ready for rapid release is exactly equal
to handling an explosive in your laptop :)

There are a lot of experimental batteries that have like 5x capacity of the
current Li-ion ones, but melt and explode when heated or crushed, which makes
them effectively useless.

This is one of the hardest problems in high-capacity batteries - to avoid
"rapid unscheduled heat dissipation" and the following "rapid unscheduled
disassembly".

~~~
Fuxy
Ok so that rules out phones, laptops and other devices that tend to get
roughed up over time but I would still consider using it as energy storage for
the solar panel on my house for instance.

As you have it isolated from the house in a specially built enclosure or
garden shed it's less likely to get damaged and even if it is the damage can
be manageable.

Then again in these cases it's more of a matter of how cheap it is vs the
amount of energy it can hold and size doesn't matter a much.

~~~
branchly2
Where weight and energy density is not a concern, you'd just use regular old-
fashioned lead-acid. Lots of charge cycles, easily recycled, simple, no
overheating, existing infrastructure.

~~~
kbenson
When the Powerwall was announced, weren't people explaining one of the
benefits over lead-acid based systems as you don't have to worry about
accidentally generating noxious or explosive gases if the system isn't well
vented? I just found something regarding that[1], but I'm unqualified to know
how much of a problem this is in reality.

1: [http://goodforgas.com/hazardous-gases-associated-lead-
acid-b...](http://goodforgas.com/hazardous-gases-associated-lead-acid-battery-
charging-stations/)

------
mangecoeur
Of all the great leaps in battery tech that keep on coming, this seems like
one of the most promising because they were forced to learn to manufacture on
real industrial equipment.

Most of the time these great battery breakthroughs go nowhere because they
only manage to demonstrate with a tiny hand-built cell (often as not only
presenting the result of the one cell that did finally work out of dozens of
attempts), but there's no path to commercialisation.

If they really do ship usable batteries by november this could be huge.

------
mtgx
I remember SolidEnergy. We discussed it here on HN before. It was one of the,
if not the most promising companies to have made "battery breakthroughs", a
few years ago. And they also seem to be launching right on time (I believe
they promised a 2016-2017 release date a few years ago).

What's strange though is that Tesla always brags about how it has a list with
"hundreds" of such battery breakthroughs, and that they know everyone in the
industry working on new tech, but none was anywhere close to coming to market,
which is why they chose to go with normal Li-Ion batteries for Gigafactory.

And now we have this announcement? Was SolidEnergy that secretive with their
battery tech evolution or why would Musk keep saying that then? I would
imagine SolidEnergy would kill for a deal with Tesla. So I wonder what else is
going on. Perhaps the battery is 2x as dense, but 4x as expensive, making it
not useful for Tesla cars anytime soon?

~~~
xbmcuser
This tech will take at least a few years to reach the point where they can
start supplying enough batteries that Tesla would need for its cars.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
... _or_ Musk saying "Lets make those in our Gigafactory instead".

------
matthewmorgan
Is it the case that the research was publicly-funded, but the profits are now
being privatized?

~~~
cheriot
American government funded research that turns into a business creating jobs
in America sounds like a reasonable outcome to me. After China stole solar, we
need some other industry with growth potential.

Edit: Do the down voters care to comment? Anti-nationalism, anti-capitalism,
or what?

~~~
touristtam
The issue is publicly founded research aleviate the burden of the investment
from the private sector, while selling the right to the new technology to a
sole private entity. The whole thing could, unless the government blocked it,
be sold to a private chinese company down the line.

~~~
cheriot
> The whole thing could, unless the government blocked it, be sold to a
> private chinese company down the line.

It wouldn't be the first battery company out of MIT to go that route.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A123_Systems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A123_Systems)

If our trade policies assume a free market then we open the door to these
situations. There's no free trade treaty to blame when China out maneuvers
more developed countries like this. Perhaps the solution is to become more
mercantilist instead of worshiping free markets.

------
branchly2
The answer here isn't batteries with more capacity. The answer is:

* more areas to lock your bike/scooter/moped (electric or otherwise)

* coin-/card-operated charging stations (as in, "plug in while you shop")

* charging stations where you work (to charge your EV during the day)

I don't think swappable battery stations would be useful, since batteries are
damaged by deep-discharging them, and swap-stations would end up with too many
damaged batteries that way.

As more people start using EVs, it will be a no-brainer for companies (or even
local electric utility companies) to start placing EV charging stations all
over town.

~~~
deelowe
What's your market? If it's the US, there's certainly a need for longer travel
distances between charging cycles. Most EV's don't have enough charge to allow
for commuting to and from work yet. Especially when you factor in grabbing
groceries, taking errands, or other things. I'm not sure what the right amount
of range should be, but it feels like it needs to be around 150 miles or so to
allow for a comfortable buffer.

Here's the census data from 2009 where they did a study on commuting in the
US:
[https://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/acs-15.pdf](https://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/acs-15.pdf)
It's pretty thorough.

~~~
branchly2
Yes, the US.

My point is, you can either increase range by having better batteries, or you
can do so by charging up while at your destination (ex., in your parking lot
at work).

It gets even better if you're running errands and you've got a charging
station at the grocery store, library, city hall, etc.

~~~
deelowe
Having to rely on others to ensure you can get around causes a lot of anxiety.
Also, it's probably a lot easier to get consumers to add chargers to their
homes and automakers to extend the range of cars than to convince uninvested
third parties to build out infrastructure.

~~~
branchly2
> Having to rely on others to ensure you can get around causes a lot of
> anxiety.

I suppose. But as it stands I'm already relying on gas stations.

> Also, it's probably a lot easier to get consumers to add chargers to their
> homes {snip}

Sorry if I was unclear. I was assuming that as a given. If I've got an EV,
it's going to be plugged into the charger at home every night.

------
SethMurphy
If we can double battery life, hardware makers will double power usage. Phones
are designed to last about a day on a full charge, and incremental battery
improvement won't change that.

~~~
mtgx
Good thing we have VR phones and 4k displays right around the corner to "take
advantage" of this increase in battery capacity! Oh, and all the Pokemon Go-
like games.

~~~
FooBarWidget
If battery life is _really_ what people care about, even over features, then
everbody would be using dumbphones instead of smartphones. So as much as
people cynically complain about companies, battery life isn't what people
value after all.

~~~
CaptSpify
I don't think this is true. I've never been given a true option about
batteries.

It's not like I get to choose two different versions of the same model of
phone, where $a has a bigger battery, and $b has $feature. It's usually a
funky mismatch between two different models, with different specs, some of
which make it faster, and some of which have a bigger battery.

But I've never seen phones with a 1-to-1 comparison for batteries.

~~~
ihowlatthemoon
You mean like the Moto Z and the Z force? Z has a 2600mAh battery and is
thinner. Z force has a 3500mAh battery for a 1.8mm addition of thickness.
Motorola has done this before with the Droid Maxx.

~~~
CaptSpify
Yeah, I'd love to have something like that for every phone. They aren't
completely the same, but they are close enough for me. I don't think I've seen
any other phone with a choice like that, though.

~~~
Tiksi
You can get extended battery packs for most phones with a removable battery. I
had a Galaxy S2 a few years back that would last 4-5 days of moderate use on a
charge with one of them, though it made the phone about 1.5cm thicker.

~~~
CaptSpify
You are correct, but

A) I don't want to buy something to upgrade my phone. I'd rather it come like
that in the first place.

B) Everyone says "nobody wants a bigger battery", but if everyone just buys
them after the fact, how do the manufacturers know? Sounds like they are just
passing the buck

C) Many phones don't have a removable battery, or it voids warranties to do
so.

------
astannard
This looks great and with such an early release date it does seem the tech is
not far away. Interesting that they are making the batteries and not licensing
the tech considering it works with existing manufacturing technologies. I
wonder how much extra cost if any for this increased energy density

------
tombert
I'm not in any way trying to undermine the research here, but I feel like it's
a bit disingenuous to use the term "could" in your description.

Batteries are a difficult thing to engineer, and all this does is provide
fodder for the 24-hour-news-cycle to give false hope.

------
Euphorbium
Great, phones will be 2 times thinner /s

~~~
vog
No, the next gen phones will need twice the power anyway, so no change in
size.

They will probably have real-time rendered 3D graphics in the user interface,
and more expensive signal processing of their sensors, because of higher
resolution of the sensors (especially regarding the camera resolution). And
more sensors in total.

/s

~~~
willvarfar
True anecdote from the early smartphone days: we were always having problems
with rendering performance, but the next platform promised to have 4x faster
CPU.

Later, it sunk in that the new screen had 5x as many pixels...

------
Dowwie
More about SolidEnergy, who is manufacturing these batteries:
[http://www.solidenergysystems.com/](http://www.solidenergysystems.com/)

------
dailo10
What I find exciting about this is:

1\. They were "forced to prototype on existing lithium ion manufacturing
equipment". This brings them much closer to actual, scalable manufacturing.

2\. Hu's ability to develop solutions when challenges arise. He figured out
how to get the battery working at room temperature. He was able to adapt his
approach to work on existing manufacturing equipment.

Hu sounds like a world class talent, and I admire his ability to overcome
challenges. Here's hoping SolidEngergy succeeds!

------
jbmorgado
I can already see Apple putting a battery 50% smaller and keep the same bad
(according to my opinion) battery life of their iPhones in order to claim they
have the thinner handset on the market.

Seriously, device thickness is for 2016 like camera megapixels was for 2006,
it's totally unnecessary to keep pushing it and it hurts usability, yet, it
looks good in the numbers you show the consumer, so companies keep doing it.

------
jimcavoli
Yeah..."A novel electrolyte also keeps the battery from heating up and
catching fire." We'll see how novel it is. I'll need a few cells, about 20min
and a hammer as a literal smoke test at least

------
lutusp
Quote: "That shrunk the battery size by half."

Nit-pick. To "shrink by half" would have the effect of doubling the size.
Maybe he meant "to half the original", but surely not "by half."

This reminds me of the commonly heard "torn in half" when either "torn into
halves" or "torn in two" is what's meant.

------
lostlogin
I'm glad that isn't the actual title, as that is truely bad.

------
GarrisonPrime
Call me cynical, but I doubt the benefits of any such dramatic breakthrough
would last long. As soon as the battery ability expands, the hardware and
software will begin to expand their battery demands as well.

~~~
omtose
Maybe in software, but I doubt that the efficiency of motors in drones or cars
would change. It's not like there are abstractions to chase in hardware, are
there?

~~~
venomsnake
It will decrease. Making 99% efficient engine is order of magnitude more
expensive than 90%. Double the battery density and suddenly the case for
lighter and expensive parts disappears.

~~~
omtose
That wouldn't be decreasing, just increasing at a slower rate.

------
ryanmarsh
I can't wait until I can start downvoting stories on HN. Haven't we had this
conversation here, over and over?

"Amazing New Battery will..."

Well actually...

------
bobajeff
Do this mean we can start making standalone smartwatches (that have
GPS/LTE/Wifi) and go back to making 4" phones again?

~~~
gm-conspiracy
iPhone 4s FTW.

------
transfire
[http://www.johnsonbatterytech.com/](http://www.johnsonbatterytech.com/)

