Comment by darksaints

I've seen this checklist before and it is infuriatingly lazy, like taking the famous HN lowbrow dismissal and turning it into a meme, but actually taking the meme seriously.

Lithium-Ion batteries are not the most superior battery. They might be the best we have for some use cases, but obviously not all, or they would have 100% market share. They haven't replaced disposable alkaline batteries. They haven't replaced AGP batteries. They haven't replaced Lead Acid batteries. They haven't replaced Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries. There are plenty of reasons why: cost, weight, safety, shelf life, etc.

Since Lithium Ion doesn't have 100% market share, a useful comparison does not have to be with Lithium Ion in order for a battery technology to be a meaningful advance. And even if it did, sometimes an advance in just one area can be enough to overcome its disadvantages in other areas.

Example: I use Lithium Iron Phosphate in my sailboat. Yes, it has lower energy density. Yes, it has lower power density. Yes, it is more expensive. Yes, it has shorter lifecycle. Yes, it has a slow charge rate. It has one solitary advantage over lithium ion, and that single advantage is the difference between life and death: it is more chemically stable and thermally stable, and less likely to result in fires.

If you have a fire in your car, that sucks...but you can just open up your car door and walk 20 feet to safety. You hop on your cell phone and call AAA or a taxi or a friend. If you're on a sailboat in the middle of the ocean, you can't do that. Even if you've planned well, with a ditch kit, a liferaft, and an EPIRB, you are still potentially several hours or even days before someone can get to you to get you to safety. In the meantime, you're floating on an ocean with waves taller than your liferaft, with a limited supply of food and water, and you have a tiny plastic membrane separating you from a place where you would need constant energy to survive and where you are no longer the top of the food chain.

So with all due respect, fuck lithium ion. And fuck this list. There is plenty of room for advances in battery technology, and we don't need religious charlatans from the Cult of Musk shitting on every single battery tech announcement.