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I hope something drastic takes place. Batteries are the only piece of "hardware" without any new discoveries in decades. Li-Ion I had in high school and it still drives my phone today.

Whoever finds a better alternative is going to completely change the automotive industry and mobile. I just don't hear about many researches being made in this field.

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The next step for batteries is making solid-state batteries work commercially for their superior energy density and safety:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9-cNNYb1Ik

24M has developed what they call a semi-solid-state battery and have delivered batteries with a capacity of 280 wh per kilogram:

https://xconomy.com/boston/2019/02/26/24m-lithium-ion-batter...

They think they can get to 350 wh/kg by 2020, which is a dramatic improvement over current EV batteries.

Tons of optimisation has happened and is happening in Li-ion tech. Musk is no stupid to go all in with it. He knew all other so called revolutionary battery technology are at least couple of decades away. At the same time, there is still tons of space for optimisation in Li-ion tech. The future for at least couple of decades, if not more, is Li-ion for sure.

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