New battery technology, Guru. When’s it happening?
AGuru’s moles in the battery game tell him that new battery chemistry is being worked on all the time. GaGu probably didn’t need to ask them, to be honest. They did do a lot of scoffing and called Guru some very rude names when he did. 80% of demand in the battery market currently comes from EVs, and those aren’t exactly dropping in number, so new and more efficient tech is imperative. Everyone wants batteries which last longer and explode less. The demand is there.
There’s a good reason we’ve not recently seen any revolutionary battery recipes overhaul the market. Primarily it’s because it is bloody hard to get a new kind of battery right, let alone to produce one in an affordable package. Some of the new formulations on the table – things like sodium-sulphur and aluminium-sulphur – do make use of cheaper, more abundant materials. This is relevant at a time when the head of one of the largest lithium mining companies, having seen the potential value of energy scarcity, is conveniently warning of potential shortage of supply.
Many pundits, a category into which Guru apparently neatly fits, suggest solid state batteries are the future. These don’t use a liquid electrolyte, making them safer and giving them a far faster charge time. Great! Except they’re probably about ten years from taking over, and they’re outrageously expensive to produce even as Nissan and Honda attempt to get production lines up and running.
So the long answer is a mixture of screaming, panic, shrugging and Old Man Guru tutting and grumbling about how in his day he had to string together a bunch of potatoes to power his wristwatch and you don’t know how good you’ve got it. Short answer? Not for a while, but it’ll happen. That’s a Guru promise.