Batteries are often overlooked, but they’re crucial for new technologies and they’re still improving. In fact, batteries are responsible for many of the advances we’ve witnessed in recent years. You can learn about the impact of the type of battery on the overall performance of a device, on this website: www.mobilearabi.net
Below, we take a look at the battery revolution.
Will there be future developments?
There’s still huge demand for batteries to improve. Mainly, consumers and tech companies are hoping for two things: smaller batteries and greater capacity. Smaller size can be more practical and allow tech companies to give smaller devices much longer battery life. At the same time, consumers are always looking for greater capacity – the more power a battery can hold the better. These two demands combine to push for smaller but longer-lasting batteries.
How will this impact the world?
Battery developments are important for the future of our planet too. The better batteries become, the more chance there is of achieving electric autonomy in transport. Essentially, this means it’ll be easier to transition towards electric vehicles and away from carbon intensive petrol and diesel cars and buses.
Elon Musk influence
Currently, lithium-ion based batteries are used in most devices. For instance, your usual Milwaukee battery is lithium ion-based for cordless tools. Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, has influenced many developments though, by pushing to improve these batteries for Tesla’s electric vehicles.
He aimed to dramatically scale up the production of his electric cars by making them cheaper and more efficient to produce. Over 50 per cent of the cost to produce his vehicles in 2010 came from their energy-dense batteries, so he targeted improving these. Tesla quickly succeeded with production costs reducing by almost 75 per cent between 2010 and 2014. There are other key influencers in the battery field, but Musk and Tesla have been an important catalyst in producing electric vehicles and improving batteries.
Batteries of the future
It’s likely that the batteries of the future will be made of sodium. The benefit of sodium is that it’s one of the most common materials on the planet – in stark contrast with lithium which is expensive to source. This means that they can be produced at a much lower cost. At the same time, following intensive research, there is growing confidence that sodium batteries can be much more efficient than conventional batters. The next step now is commercialisation: this could take around five to 10 years, but we should see them in cars and smartphones soon.
Batteries may be overlooked when we discuss technology, but they’re set to be hugely important in the coming years. The practical and environmental benefits of improved batteries could dramatically improve our lives – especially with the emergence of sodium as a new battery material.
