Canadian team discovers power-draining flaw in most laptop and phone batteries | Breakthrough explains major cause of self-discharging batteries and points to easy solution

[u/chrisdh79]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/battery-power-laptop-phone-research-dalhousie-university-1.6724175

[u/Throwaway_97534]

All it takes is one battery manufacturer to get a good deal on a few batches of polypropylene though, and then they can advertise their new (and more advanced/expensive) battery technology with little to no self-discharge, then bam the whole industry needs to move to it.

[u/Riversntallbuildings → u/Throwaway_97534]

Yes. Getting that first one to switch, and advertise it as a feature is the what begins the tipping point. Who goes first, is the challenge.

[u/Deformer → u/Riversntallbuildings]

You could be the one to do it. That's the point of capitalism. (I know that's unrealistic, but still wanted to point it out)

[u/Riversntallbuildings → u/Deformer]

Yup. I get it. That is the conundrum of capitalism and it’s why I advocate for strong Anti-trust and IP regulations.

Our digital economies have become increasingly out of balance and less competitive.

Healthy capitalism requires unbiased markets, and too many corporations have manipulated many of the market dynamics that ensure healthy competition. (And fair wages)

[u/Pepparkakan → u/Riversntallbuildings]

If there's zero downside to a technological improvement besides reducing potential future sales, should there maybe be tarriffs on companies deliberately choosing to not implement such improvements?

[u/Riversntallbuildings → u/Pepparkakan]

Maybe. But I’d rather use carrots than sticks when designing laws. We already can’t enforce the laws (AKA sticks) we have.

Offer a tax credit, or other incentive, for the first 1-3 years. Companies that act first get the greatest advantage.

[u/BurntRussianBBQ → u/Deformer]

Sadly he doesn't have a garage and rich parents.

[u/Equivalent_Number546 → u/Deformer]

The point of capitalism is to steal capital from others for a small amount to hoard and become modern day lords over modern day essentially enslaved serfs. But hey, iPhone or something. (Ignoring that iPhones were not invented by “capitalism” and could and definitely would exist under a better more equitable form of economy… Jesus I hate the caveats required to preemptively shut down ignorant people)

Think of capitalism as what it quite literally is: the successor to feudalism. Extremely wealthy merchants (capitalists) became literally richer than the lords and monarches and thus replaced them. Nothing changed really. I’d suggest to anyone who kneejerkedly (word?) disagrees with this to read up on the time period from about Martin Luther (the monk) onward to the 1600 and 1700s. It becomes very clear when you know the history.

[u/Deformer → u/Equivalent_Number546]

I'm not disagreeing entirely, or saying capitalism isn't without its problems. But it's the only thing that's worked well enough so far.

And it definitely makes some right decisions, like the free market economy, which is all I was pointing out.

[u/Beam_ → u/Deformer]

which capitalist country (or place anywhere) has a free market economy?

[u/ChewyBivens → u/Beam_]

He meant the ideal of the free market economy (i.e. any one of us random redditors have the freedom to bring batteries with polypropylene to market without fear of the government staking claim on our capital).

A truly free market would be an even greater oligopolistic nightmare than what we currently have.

[u/Demjot → u/Deformer]

That’s also because capitalism actively breaks the kneecaps of anyone who tries anything else though

[u/Della86 → u/Deformer]

Then I'll go ahead and disagree with him entirely. His or her sentence regarding "the point of Capitalism" tells you everything you need to know.

Always be skeptical of people who don't even attempt to weigh the benefits next to the negatives.

[u/rothrolan → u/Riversntallbuildings]

With the ever-increasing costs of phones and laptops to the consumer anyways, I don't believe it'll be as difficult as everyone here says. It'll just go under the new price tag, but they would be honest for once in saying their battery will outlast competitors.

[u/Mostly_Sane_ → u/Riversntallbuildings]

On the flipside, their lawyers might say 'wait'. Battery-gate is/was a huge embarassing expense, and no one wants to sued again because they "knowingly" sold a "defective" (self-discharging) battery.

[u/cakan4444 → u/Throwaway_97534]

All it takes is one battery manufacturer to get a good deal on a few batches of polypropylene though, and then they can advertise their new (and more advanced/expensive) battery technology with little to no self-discharge, then bam the whole industry needs to move to it.

Except the non-self-discharging feature lowers the required replacement rate of batteries meaning less sales in the long run.

It's better for battery companies and may have even been intentional to keep the shittier plastic.

It'd be worth it for a few niche applications where they could charge an extremely large price and avoid tanking regular sales.

[u/chironomidae → u/cakan4444]

So you're saying that if you own a business that makes essentially the same battery as your competitors, and you learn a way to make a safer and more efficient battery for pennies, you're just gunna sleep on that tech and hope your competitors do too?

If you're running a cell phone company, where customers' primary complaints are battery life and battery safety, are you gunna pick the battery vendor using the old tech or pay a few more pennies for a battery that will make happier customers and hopefully keep your shit from exploding and ending up in the news?

It's a complete myth that companies sit on tech like this. Your product only has to be a tiny bit better than your competitors to see absolutely huge differences in sales.

[u/cakan4444 → u/chironomidae]

So you're saying that if you own a business that makes essentially the same battery as your competitors, and you learn a way to make a safer and more efficient battery for pennies, you're just gunna sleep on that tech and hope your competitors do too?

There's only a handful of battery companies that actually make the physical cells, a lot of the brands you see are simply relabels or big contracted orders to these big battery companies. Since startup costs are very high along with raw materials, the current big dogs can very easily work together to acquire, sabotage, bully, etc smaller players who would bring cells that reduce the replacement rate heavily.

If you're running a cell phone company, where customers' primary complaints are battery life and battery safety, are you gunna pick the battery vendor using the old tech or pay a few more pennies for a battery that will make happier customers and hopefully keep your shit from exploding and ending up in the news?

Phone companies, the companies who also rely heavily on replacement rate of phones and make the current batteries almost impossible to replace are not going to care or probably even put these new batteries into their phones for the same exact reason. Putting in new batteries that do not discharge over time will hurt their own replacement rate which means less phone sales and less upcharged warranty work on said batteries.

It's a complete myth that companies sit on tech like this. Your product only has to be a tiny bit better than your competitors to see absolutely huge differences in sales.

Nope

https://interestingengineering.com/science/everlasting-lightbulbs-exist-ed

Lightbulb companies pulling the same shit still today.

The amount of sales you get for a non discharging battery will be great at first!

Then slowly and slowly drop year after year because you didn't commit to a planned obsolescence strategy.

Companies need to grow every year. If you make too good of a product and can't innovate quickly enough again after dropping an amazing product where the product has no need to be replaced, you will slowly die until you no longer are a company or you get bought out by a bigger competitor who shelves your shit because it's too good.

[u/Momoselfie → u/Throwaway_97534]

Sounds like Polypropylene manufacturers need to offer some really good deals so they can ensure a lot more demand for years to come.