There have been more than a few recent scientific breakthroughs and improvements with battery technology. The corporations are not ready to take them on. New technology is expensive to research and refine into practical applications. Development takes time. If a newer technology comes along that makes the last advancement obsolete, the corporation just lost a good chunk of capital.
Money is the problem. Money is the greatest and most subtle form of social and technological control. Isn't it a sad time for humanity when advanced technology is suppressed (or at the very least, not pursued or made available publicly) because of greed? Because it cannot be patented or generate revenue? Or because it competes too closely with an older product that already has a large market share?
Business does not spark innovation, unless that innovation increases profits or cuts costs.
That sounds convincing when you read it, but so much of it isn't true.
Money is subtle? No it's not. Money is front and center of any reason any business does anything.
"A corporation loses capital if a new technology comes along?" First off, go look up what 'Capital' means, because they wouldn't lose their buildings and assets, they'd lose future sales. And that doesn't matter to the company that produces the new technology. Do you think Google cares that they stole market share from MS via Chrome beating out IE? Do you think Samsung held back on innovation because they didn't want to steal sales from Apple? Why do you think innovation has to occur with a single company? Who ever figures out how to make a better battery will be RICH! I can guarantee you there are plenty of companies racing to be the first.
To think that ANY technology is has hit a wall or has topped up today, in my opinion, is one of the stupidest things possible to be thought...
Would it help us to have a car capable of doing 100mpg at 100mph? Probably. Would any oil company agree? Probably not.
Yes, we can hit a wall... it's because of physics. Look at processors in a PC. they've kinda maxed out at around 3.5Ghz and now the ways to speed them up have to do with multiple cores, hyperthreading, caching, 22nm instead of 28nm etc... why not just make a 5Ghz processor? Because silicon melts when you shoot electricity through it that fast.
Why don't we have 100mpg cars? Because a gallon of gasoline can only produce so much energy when you burn it. They can't make 87 octane gas explode more. Cars are heavy, and they have to be in order to be safe and it just isn't possible to move 2500 pounds of metal 100 miles by burning a gallon of gas.
It's not a conspiracy... In order to get past these barrier we need completely new technologies. Circuit boards made from synthetic diamond that won't melt, engines that use battery technology not yet invented.
Do you really think Chevy lost a ton of money on their Volt because they didn't want to make it better and lose out on sales of the Cruise? Do you think the Prius only gets 40 mpg because Toyota doesn't want to sell too many of them? If better battery tech were possible neither of those cars would even have gasoline engines and they'd cost far less to make. They could be sold at the same price they are today and the car makers would be turning huge profits.
Do you think Qualcomm doesn't want to improve battery tech because then they'll have to deal with the problem of making millions of them a year and dominating the market?
