No. Just no. I don't know how freely I can talk about my research, but there's plenty going on with batteries.
So, there is a better battery. And it's inevitable.
I'm not in research like this, so I just hear things fed off of Y(HN). I've heard of some interesting devices like the carbon nanotube based supercapacitors (was that what it was?). Who knows?
But what we care about is when that research will result in better batteries _that_ we can buy.
He's not commenting on the tech so much as the wisdom of ASSUMING it will be better in a certain time frame.
He's saying, it's not wise to build a business on top of the idea that battery tech will progress predictably or at all.
I disagree, because any business built on that will be the first to exploit it properly when it comes out, as a competitive advantage. But if they're wrong, they'll deal with the downside risk of, you know, being wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_battery http://www.ted.com/talks/donald_sadoway_the_missing_link_to_... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-ion_battery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-sulfur_battery
Seeing how much progress is being made extremely rapidly on getting these types of technologies into the marketplace, the idea that the last five years have been stagnant is difficult to believe.
Unless, of course, all battery research was stagnant under Bush? I suppose that's possible, and what we've seen is the standard 5-10 year research backlog starting to catch back up to a lack of funding for oil alternatives.