[jillesvangurp]

A more productive way to think about this is in terms of technology readiness levels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_readiness_level

There's a specialized version of this called BC/RL for battery research as well.

This particular article sits about half way the scale. This was an actual study, with actual batteries, that reportedly actually had improved life spans. So dismissing that with a hand wavy this is all just academic nonsense doesn't quite fly here. But of course from here to production is indeed quite a journey. I bet a lot of companies with active investment in battery R&D are paying attention and might be going to try to replicate the success.

Also worth noting that if you only pay attention to the stuff that is at the highest levels, you basically miss out on new things until they are old news. For example if you have been dismissing solid state batteries, you might have missed the news that they are being used in products now.