Well, it only looks like nothing because our power demands have increased as well.

Current Lithium Ion Polymer batteries are a far cry from the ones of a decade ago, despite being very similar tech.

The main issue with most of these alternative battery approaches are either low capacity, or low charge cycles. Finding a chemistry that both packs enough power in a small enough package to run devices for long term, and that don’t wear out quickly is difficult.

But the battery technology did improve in these years.

You need to look at battery lab research on a 10-20 year time before it gets commercialized at scale.

Moreover, go look at your rechargeable batteries from 10 or 20 years ago. They’re heavier, less energy dense, have shorter lifespans, have much slower charge rates. A lot of those advancement started in a lab and look many years to make it to your laptop or car.

Lots of small, incremental improvements. The news predictably is always promising a huge breakthrough

Writing headlines is a selection process. You write about all the useless but cool stuff while ignoring all the boring but important stuff.

Improving Li-ion by 1% doesn’t make headlines, but that sort of stuff has been going on in the background for a few decades already. That’s why current batteries are so useful and widespread.

Lab prototypes are sexy, even if they’re 50 years away from becoming commercially viable. Sure, these things can charge fast, or hold a huge capacity, but they also tend to die after 10 cycles. Fixing that is going to take a long time, just like it did for Li-ion batteries.

You’re expecting revolution. You’re getting evolution.

The latest Chinese smartphones use new S/C batteries. They have a capacity of 6000-7000 mAh with even less overall weight.

In my lifetime, about the only rechargeable battery the average person had in their home was the one in their car. Now we’ve added 4 new major battery chemistries to the commercial space, some with multiple variants within them and all with improvements throughout their lifetimes. This is what science and technology looks like. The results you’re looking for would be magic or wishful thinking.

How many years?

The amount of utility I accidentally extract from my phone over the course of a day on one charge is pretty incredible.

It doesn’t have to be better it just has to be Goodenough.