Every other year, (solar-)electric cars scratch-built by high school students drive on public roads from Texas to (usually) California. This is considered a reasonable level of challenge, and something which insurers will cover (entrants are required to have vehicle liability insurance).
You would be ok getting into an accident with one the same as you would get in an accident driving a civic?
Or maybe those are just learning vehicles meant to teach, and not meant to be car replacements? Just like this flow battery project?
Ironically your post validates my whole point: This is a student project at best, and likely worthless as a "democratization of energy storage". The same way those EV's would never be considered "democratization of EV cars".
I take your criticism, but as for your comment that it's "a student project at best"... we do have PhDs (mine in flow batteries !) and manage this project in our spare time, at our homes...
Our small team is fully qualified to work at any flow battery company. Just give us some time and let us work on it full-time for a bit (which will happen soon). The linked post on top was a blogpost I cranked out in a few minutes one night, not something I ever expected to be on HN.