It’s interesting that battery stories generate so much opprobrium when battery performance has increased so dramatically over the last couple of decades.

Don't know why, I just love esoteric words thrown into a sentence when a simple one would do.

What about the last decade? My guess is that iPhone battery density hasn't improved at all.

Looking at currently available 18650s, they are the same ones I was buying for my e-cig in 2015. Which were already a year or two old at that point.

However the prices seem to have come down a bit despite all the inflation since then.

The other day I heard a podcast interview ( https://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcasts/episode-927 ) with somebody from Amprius Technologies, they're also starting serial production of a 1000 kwh/kg battery.

Their main energy density boost is a silicone anode, which we've known "for ages" that it leads to higher energy density, but soaking it with lithium degrades the material very quickly, leading to cracks and thus damage after just a few charge cycles. The main innovation is some kind of nano-structuring of the anode, and that technique was published in the scientific literature in 2006.

I'm sure it was hyped as a battery break-through in 2006, and it has taken 17 years to get to market.

So, maybe we shouldn't go back 5 years, more like 20 years (OK, no HN back then :D).

Batteries do get better over time, fairly consistently so. The development lifecycle is just soooo much longer than in software.

I follow these announcements with a sense of dread, as battery limits are the main obstacle between our current situation and widespread adoption of drones and robotics for military use.