this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023
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There has actually been a ton of progress with this over the last decade.
However, everything we have discovered so far either can't hold as much energy, has really limited charge cycles, or is far too expensive to use at scale.
Ton of progress?
I would refer to that as "research ongoing but no progress yet".
The big problem is the higher the energy density the greater the release of energy in a catastrophic failure. For example if you were to increase energy density ten fold, then the release of energy due to catastrophic damage to the battery would be ten fold. Materials aren't even in the consideration, it's going to be an explosion.
We'd certainly welcome an EV battery that weighs greatly less, but safety is always going to be a forefront issue only by the physics of energy storage.
Still there needs to be a lot of improvement. I think the weight issue is the outstanding one. Higher energy density and greater longevity would certainly be welcome, but I think safety will always be skirting the edge. It's not been a fast track toward these goals, but it's still come a good way. Unfortunately I expect lithium-ion technology to hit a wall sooner than later.