[userbinator]

They'll never do it because it means decreased profits.

There are articles that appear here and elsewhere semi-frequently about how doing something simple extends battery lifetimes a huge amount, but those never get implemented in practice except perhaps for highly niche applications.

Instead what usually happens is they'll then find a way to make them last the same amount of time, but with higher energy density. The "high voltage" lion cells (>4.2V end of charge) are an example of that process; they will last much longer than previous types if charged to 4.2V, but they'd rather advertise them as 4.3 or 4.35 or even 4.4V(!) and the extra capacity that gives.

[mort96]

Hm this doesn't seem to be panning out in practice. Loads of devices have grown "optimize charging" style features in the recent-ish past, and those features are explicitly there to extend battery longevity (at the expense of consumer convenience even!). Clearly, the market forces are more complex than "short battery lifetime = more frequent device upgrades = profit" (although that effect is certainly *a part of& the equation).

[vkou]

> They'll never do it because it means decreased profits.

This is a lazy dismissal of any process or efficiency improvements.

If buyers care to pay for efficiency improvements, products with them will be more attractive to them. If they don't, they won't.

If your theory were true, we wouldn't have things like rechargeable batteries, low-energy appliances, or light bulbs that would last more than two months.

There's always some performance point when most people largely stop differentiating products based on efficiency or longevity improvements, and I'm not sure if consumer Li-I batteries are at that point yet.

[userbinator]

or light bulbs that would last more than two months.

Read up on the Phoebus Cartel, and more recently how LED lamps which were supposed to last "almost forever" when the technology was first introduced have not lived up to expectations at all. Also, unlike incandescents, LED lamps can last much longer and be more efficient, but they are deliberately made not to --- with some very narrow exceptions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27093793

[gamblor956]

Expensive LED bulbs do live up to the expectations. They also cost about $50/each because those kinds of LED bulbs are expensive to make; it's the other electronics and parts that drive the price tags up.

[stephen_g]

Also fittings - none of my (relatively expensive) installed downlights have failed since I put them in seven years ago, partially because they’re well engineered but also since they’re installed how they’re designed to be. But I have a fitting designed for an incandescent bulb and LED replacement bulbs (even decent ones) tend to fail within six to nine months in it, because they were never designed for the heat to escape properly since the incandescent bulbs didn’t really need it. But I have other of the same bulbs in more open fittings and they last fine.

[phil21]

Yeah, I still have a few of the OG Philips x-prize bulbs going strong well over a decade of use. Plus a half dozen of the follow-ons that look very similar.

I suspect they outlive me at this point.

[lolc]

I fitted a few low-power Philips bulbs twelve years ago, always on in a hallway. I don't think even one of them failed yet.

[tecleandor]

I don't think so. You can do your marketing so you "precondition your cells" and "have better charge and longevity with the same size and weight than competition".

I'm not into Apple, but I guess that if Apple could have chosen between that "lowering performance on iPhones when the battery capacity was decreased" shit and "precondition the cells to make them last longer", they would have chosen the second and make it very public.

[soulofmischief]

A lot of energy research is speculative and it can take decades for research to go from the lab to the consumer.

This finding, however, specifically integrates with existing infrastructure; no new, unproven technology is needed, we just simply juice the batteries more during initial charge. If it pans out after extensive testing, we can see this technique hitting the market within 2 years.

[7speter]

This would seem to increase profits, for one thing, it would make electric vehicles much more viable to a whole lot more people

[crazygringo]

> They'll never do it because it means decreased profits.

That's only true under monopoly conditions.

Fortunately, in capitalism, when there are two more more companies doing things like making phones, those companies actually compete on features. And battery longevity is absolutely a feature consumers care about.

And there's certainly no kind of monopoly conditions in cell phones. Competition is thriving. As it is in most types of portable electronics generally -- Bluetooth speakers, laptops, and so forth.

If you're the company that does it first, that means increased profits because suddenly more people buy your product. And if you're the company that does it last, it means decreased profits because less people will buy your product compared to the competition. That's the invisible hand at work.