His main concern about Li-ion is that it is a still heavy researched field. There are lots of papers and studies coming out about the material and how it can be used in application. The volume of papers around the topic is a sign to him that it's not as well understood of a material as the public believes.
I'm not a chemist (my dad was, but got out of the field right after I was born), but that's what I see in computer science research. When OOP was hot we saw a huge volume of papers in subtyping systems, faster method dispatch, design patterns, etc. When XML was hot we saw a lot of papers on tree-diffing, compression of tree structures, etc. After BigTable, Dynamo, Riak came out we saw a lot of papers on distributed systems and CRDTs.
It makes sense that as a technology catches on in industry, the amount of research grants related to that technology increases, which incentivizes scientists to study that topic in more depth.
Additionally the materials which make up the battery can vary. The cathode of a Li-Ion battery is typically some type of lithium intermetallic compound (typically Lithium-Cobolt based) and the anode can vary (from simple graphite to intermetallic compounds to more exotic things like Sn nano-particles, polymers etc).
In 2010 my undergraduate thesis in materials engineering was on developing a prototype anode made from graphene dispersed Tin-Cobolt nanoparticles. This was back when graphene was first discovered and was being pretty widely hyped as a 'wonder material'. It was hoped that by dispersing the metal particles in graphene matrix we could better accommodate the mechanical stresses that come from cycling the battery (when you intercalate and deintercalate Li ions there is a volume expansion and subsequent contraction - this is what causes battery to degrade after charge/discharge cycles). Results were mostly inconclusive largely due to unreliability of synthesis technique we used for manufacturing graphene - Electrostatic Spray reductive Precipitation (ESRP).
But yes Undergraduates are messing around with Li-Ion technology its not surprising corporations are too.