I think it did and still does matter. Slowing battery development also slowed other aspects of EV tech. To be fair, most auto manufacturers weren't and to some degree still aren't fully on board with even their own EVs.
If it wasn't for companies like BYD, Tesla, etc, pushing EVs forward, I think we'd still be stuck with compliance cars.
NiMH wasn't great though. I think the best was the NiMH EV1 at 142 miles of range.
> I think it did and still does matter. Slowing battery development also slowed other aspects of EV tech.
I just don't see it. The first LiIon EVs had very little technology that was not off-the shelf. Roadster was quite literally a bunch of laptop batteries bolted onto a car frame. It's not that hard to make an expensive EV.
The problem was/is that optimizing EVs will undercut ICE sales, so Toyota just ignored what their engineers said for decades to maintain the status quo and, like most legacy auto manufacturers, fell behind newcomers in the EV space.
Was battery technology actually slowed? When Tesla began mass-producing EVs, they were using off-the-shelf vendor batteries. It seems like if anything the battery tech was ahead of the EV wave, having been driven by thin and light ultraportable computers.
The two guys who created Tesla were the same guys who created the e-reader, which would become the kindle.
They took their knowledge from the kindle batteries and put it into a car.
P.S. Tesla has always used off the shelf vendor batteries. Panasonic has their separate section within the Tesla factories where they are mass producing regular looking batteries that are then assembled in series.
The EV1 probably cost like $150,000+ in 2023 dollars just to build, so they've made lots of progress, but electric vehicles don't beat comparable conventional vehicles across the board, they have better performance and lower operating costs, and that's most of it.
If it wasn't for companies like BYD, Tesla, etc, pushing EVs forward, I think we'd still be stuck with compliance cars.
NiMH wasn't great though. I think the best was the NiMH EV1 at 142 miles of range.