Lampe-Onnerud: Development in batteries

However, what you will see is enormous devotion to improving the components. The anode material, the conductive materials, the separator materials, the polymeric materials, the cathodes, the tabs, the way they are put together, the mechanical solutions. Because the system really was only deployed in 1991. Again, folding back to 1850 for your lead-acid car starter battery, still at MIT in development. It takes a long time.
Maybe it will change the perspective forever. A battery is really like a chemical factory. Very complicated. It has to be very, very precise. To change one component, the development cycle of just that one component, is between two and five years before it hits the market; even if it's identified. So fifty years probably for lithium-ion, we will see a ton of innovation. It takes roughly twenty years from embryonic research, discover it basically, of new systems, into first steps of commercialization. And I think it's unclear if we even see origins of first step innovations right now.