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Battery Reality: There’s Nothing Better Than Lithium-Ion Coming Soon

Falling prices and sunk costs mean that the reigning storage technology has a lasting lead.

Lithium ion batteries sit on a table at the China BAK Battery Inc. facility in Tianjin, China.
Photographer: Keith Bedford/
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Clean-energy visionaries have long argued that the world needs a better battery capable of selling skeptical consumers on electric cars and running the grid on renewable power. And yet the battery of the future—at least for the coming decade—will almost certainly be the battery of the past.

The humble lithium-ion battery has built up such a commanding lead in the market that competing technologies may struggle to catch up. That lead will only widen as a wave of planned new lithium-ion factories comes online in the next five years.