Newsletter
Smartphones have greatly evolved in a relatively small amount of time, new and better hardware components are everyday being developed to meet the high standards the whole tech industry market is now accustomed to. Hardware elements like screens have been going through some huge advancements, such as the resolution and size. Unfortunately, one of the few areas that has been requested the most by consumers and hasn’t been improved as fast as others, is the battery life and overall evolution. According to recent reports, several battery manufacturers are making some rather huge advancements in this area, which have led to an exponential increase in the overall competition and will at some point bring said enhancements into their smartphones. Manufacturers like LG and Samsung (Inside their Chem and SDI sectors respectively) have been taking more action to overtake Tesla, the worldwide leader in the electric vehicle industry, as the most notorious battery manufacturer, even if they are being aimed towards different products.
Tesla is currently the best and most popular electric vehicle manufacturer, working closely with Panasonic to build more large-scale lithium-ion battery manufacturing plants in Nevada. These forthcoming facilities will allow Tesla’s annual battery production capacity to be increased up to 50 GW by the year 2020. The great dominance of Tesla in the battery market has managed to motivate other companies like LG Chem and Samsung SDI to further improve their whole battery manufacturing.
LG Chem announced its intentions to release a less expensive home battery that would allow homeowners to enjoy from a more accessible power source. This new battery will be released in collaboration with Eguana Technologies and comes after Tesla revealed the first home battery, called the Powerwall, back on April 30. Tesla’s Powerwall is capable of storing up to 10 kW of energy, with an somewhat elevated price of 4.4 million including installation costs, it is the main reasoning behind LG Chem developing a cheaper alternative. The overall home battery market has been predicted to face a major growth, from the 430 billion already won to at least 3.5 trillion between this year to the year 2020.
Samsung has been also working on improving its own battery production, just as its competitor, LG. With an upcoming factory in Xi’an scheduled to begin operations in the second half of the year, Samsung will increase its annual capacity by at least 40,000 units. Even if the battery market is still relatively small and currently undergoing development, major companies have begun focusing on it because of its great potential and this will become more notorious over the next few years, when battery manufacturers focus on getting the new advances into smartphones, greatly improving battery life without affecting their size or weight.