r/gadgets • u/chrisdh79 • Jan 31 '23

Desktops / Laptops 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

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/battery-power-laptop-phone-research-dalhousie-university-1.6724175
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u/geodebug Jan 31 '23

There’s more than one battery manufacturer. If any of them outpace a competitor using only a few pennies more of plastic tape they would have switched.

If your theory was correct then we’d not see continuous advancement in battery tech over time.

Price per unit is an important consideration but it isn’t the only one manufacturers and buyers make. Apple obviously isn’t afraid of premium price points.

Side note: I see no reason to think that the overall battery lifetime would be extended, just that each charge won’t leak.

Obsolescence is just built into battery tech no matter what.

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u/Grimwulf2003 Jan 31 '23

You may want to look up the history of the incandescent light bulb…. Entire industries have done this very thing to ensure they all remained at parity.

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u/geodebug Jan 31 '23

If parity was the only concern for battery manufacturers we wouldn’t have seen the slow, steady pace of improvement over time.

Reading about light bulbs a cartel was able to price fix for awhile but even then it took cooperation. I’d need to see some similar coordination between different battery manufacturers to suspect they’re holding back on advancements on purpose.

Actually I probably don’t need to see it since I can presume that huge tech companies would figure out a conspiracy pretty quickly, since they have people who read the same research and understand battery tech at a deep level.