It turns out that even the most amazing technologies don't just automatically get you huge checks overnight. You have to build a business, starting with a first product, and grow from there.
Actually no, if this worked it would be a 30-minute meeting.
<Gbatteries> Our patented technology extends the charge-cycle life of standard lithium-ion batteries by at least 200%, and we can prove it.
<Panasonic> Great, we will license that. Here's a check for five billion dollars.
A conversation like that means there are other options:
<Gbatteries> Our patented technology extends the charge-cycle life of standard lithium-ion batteries by at least 200%, and we can prove it.
<Investor> Great, we will invest, get a product to market and you can IPO in 2 years.
It's why saying "yes" to an acquisition is so hard. There are always other options.
<Gbatteries founder 1> We need to patent our technology before we can talk to to anyone, otherwise they can steal our tech.
<Gbatteries founder 2> Great, let me check our startup bank account. We have... uh... $3000.
<Gbatteries founder 1> What? Filling a patent in the US and EU cost $5000 each including agent fees. Even if I use all my personal savings, how do we eat in the 6 months that it takes to get the patent approved?
Panasonic would NOT pay additional money in licensing to make less money by having their batteries last longer.
Large companies like this make sure the batteries they use aren't interchangable or standardized. They certainly don't want to make batteries that you wouldn't want to replace.
If you look at profit analysis of almost any product (like a panasonic camera), the profit margins are all in the accessories, like batteries.
Fair enough I could see Apple doing this. Although if batteries last as long as indicated here they would have to up the cost nearly twice as much per battery to keep profits steady.
Anecdotally, I see few people replacing their apple device (for an other one) because of battery life, and conversely stories of apple stores replacing batteries/devices because of battery life issues are regular.
All in all, I don't think they'd care. Their biggest business these days is phone & tablet, and battery life (and the failure thereof) is not the primary upgrade driver.
Battery life was one of the big things that OS X 10.9 touted as an improvement. Apple expended significant engineering effort in reducing energy use to squeeze more out of their current batteries[1]. On the mobile side of things, they developed the M7 co-processor to allow access to sensor data without having to wake up the CPU, and famously never supported flash, both in an apparent attempt to save battery life. They seem to me to be very interested in battery life and I think any technology that could increase it by significant margins would be something they would snap up.
> Panasonic would NOT pay additional money in licensing to make less money by having their batteries last longer.
> Large companies like this make sure the batteries they use aren't interchangable or standardized
Li-Ion cells are made in a variety of standard sizes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_sizes#Round_lithium-ion.... I happen to own a couple of individual 18650 cells, and Panasonic and a number of other companies supply these cells to battery pack manufacturers wholesale.
