Comment by ggm

As the article itself basically says, this is the least-worst kind of bad, and for consumers, it's pretty hard to see this as bad. So all the grumpy "China won't let me compete" stories are kinda whacked.

Strategically, any nation state depending on constant incoming battery supply probably wants a production facility, because when you decide to invade somewhere it's a bit embarrassing if you can't get batteries for your drones, due to that economy being .. the enemy.

I liked this: China’s BYD and CATL both continue to invest billions in R&D, are steadily launching new and better products, and in general are behaving more like scrappy startups than bloated corporate fiefdoms.

To me, that says we're in for more gooder better times ahead. Longer range, less risk of fire (these days, most fires start in cheap scooter batterypacks it seems)

Batteries are transforming electricity grid economics. We run these as markets because of neoliberal lunacy, when its a public utility function. Batteries make good money right now in arbitrage but their longterm role shifting Solar and wind to other times of day is huge. It can put electricity back into the public utility model, we can stop treating this as a profit market and focus on cost recovery of the transmission network, without coal. I can live with some gas peaker plants until they too are surplus to requirement.

Batteries are to me the closest we've got to the jetpack we were promised. They aren't "Mr Fusion" on a delorean flying machine car, but they are enormously cool.