Looks like everybody who’s everybody in the mobile device industry is looking at better, badder, more kick-butt batteries – that is, without the hyperbole, a battery that will last longer and will fit into smaller spaces than the current lithium-ion standard. Google is the latest name to get into the game of who will produce what is considered the “holy grail” right now in mobile devices – a longer lasting, thinner, and probably flexible battery.
Google’s team for this venture is still small, but it is led by former Apple Inc. battery expert Dr. Ramesh Bhardwaj. His team of four research people is looking at the batteries needed by current Google technology – Dr. Bhardwaj has come up with at least 20 battery-dependent Google projects. Some people say that this team is too small to make grand leaps in battery tech, but obviously, we will all have to wait and see what they come up with.
It seems that the current plan of the team is to improve the current standard lithium-ion technology and maybe incorporate the better and emerging solid state battery technology. There is no other word beyond that on any kind of progress. In their defense, the emerging technology for batteries today – solid state, thin film, flexible batteries – while promising, still have question marks when it comes to mass production.
This is why we still have no giant leap for batteries when it seems that mobile devices today are badly needing one. What people have come up with – like faster charging times – are all interim solutions. Let’s hope Google’s team can bring the technology forward.
