It’s technology’s biggest puzzle: although smartphones,laptops and even electric cars find lighter, cheaper and double in power every few years, and they still die when you most need them. How close are we to perfecting a ‘super battery’ that charges at lightning speeds and lasts for days?My battery has died – anyone got a spare charger? It’s a shout with which most of us with a phone,laptop, or even an electric car, and can sympathise. The mild but persistent irritation of a phone fading to black when you most need it. The never-ending pursuit of plug sockets. The sinking feeling when you realise you’ve picked the only train carriage with no power. The conflicting advice on how to prolong the life of your ever-sickening battery combined with the dim knowledge that it will die in a few years anyway. The nightly routine of charging your phone before bed.“The issue with existing batteries is that they suck,” Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla, and said in May at the launch of the Powerwall,a sleek new battery. It’s a mystery up there with dim matter and the question of why you still can’t buy a toaster that browns both sides of the bread equally: why enact batteries suck?Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com