Battery technology announcements are always extremely over hyped. Mostly by media and PR departments rather than actual scientific or domain specific outlets.
Advancements happen, but even if they are technically and commercially viable, it takes years until anything becomes actually useful.
Right, except this announcement specifically isn't. It's a short description of a new technology with targeted use-cases, which explicitly points out the ways in which it's not ready to displace existing technologies.
You are correct that there is often unjustified hype around battery technology in general. But this article is absolutely not that.
Perhaps it could be better phrased to be clearer that it's "the highest of solid state batteries" and not "the highest of batteries, and also solid state".
You're correct, but eventually one of these announcements will live up to the promise. LiPo was basically stumbling due to a few manufacturing at scale issues at the time, and once those got solved (Sony released a standard LiPo cell in 1991) it wasn't long before it became the new standard.
I'm still sceptical of new battery tech announcements, but I still get excited by them!
1) "Hey, that's great, I hope it works out for them!"
2) "Can I actually pull out my visa card right now, and buy some individual units online?"
Re: #2, most batteries have very little relevance to me as an end user until they're commercially available to buy. For instance the Panasonic NCR18650GA (245-250Wh/kg) li-ion, the Molicell P42A (21700 size li ion that's capable of being discharged at 45A rate with appropriate cooling), and other state of the art technology. I can go buy those right now from some reputable online stores.
Until whatever other new battery shows up to actually purchase, it exists in a liminal, theoretical state only.
Yes, we just play our hyperbole with a straight bat.
Rule of thumb, if it sounds to good to be true. It probably is but the PR department needs to do something.