* First, although they are claiming every aspect of this battery is quite a bit better, the key variable missing is price.
* Interesting that $1 billion investment, partially by Qatar Investment Authority. It seems the oil states may be realizing things are changing. It might also incentive them to get on board with electrification.
Oil states are investing in anything that isn’t oil since basically forever. They are very conscious their luck is finite and that they need to transform their huge capital into an income for when the day will come.
That’s why they invest in luxury tourism, sports, new technologies… in fact, they have basically no interest into investing into oil related things. Their interest is that /others/ invest in it.
Another issue is recycle-ability. For the current generation of battery technology there are tested methods for close to complete recycling of the whole battery and plans for scaling it up.
For solid state there's not even a theoretical solution for how to recycle.
The price is set by the market, not by the manufacturer.
This means that they won't really know the price until they find somebody willing to buy it. Before that it is just guesswork. If it costs more to produce then people are willing to spend then it won't last very long.
Which means "First commercially viable" part of the title is a bit of marketing propaganda wank. It might be or might not be commercially viable. This isn't something that gets to be decided by the manufacturer.
This is incorrect. The manufacturer can set a high price and target a high margin part of the market in exchange for lower demand.
It is not in the best interests of any business outside of a commodities producer to produce at absolute top volume and keep lowering price until demand absorbs it all.
>Which means "First commercially viable" part of the title is a bit of marketing propaganda wank.
Not necessarily. If they are confident they can build it in volume at a cost equal to or less than existing batteries, then by definition they are justified in calling it commercially viable.
* First, although they are claiming every aspect of this battery is quite a bit better, the key variable missing is price.
* Interesting that $1 billion investment, partially by Qatar Investment Authority. It seems the oil states may be realizing things are changing. It might also incentive them to get on board with electrification.