People often assume the rate of improvement in electronics and electric motors is indicative of the possible rate of improvement in batteries.
not so, here's why in part.
1) Moore's Law, (an empirical rather than fundamental law) has long held true for electronics. Due to miniturisation made possible by optics and clever design software, electronics has doubled in density every 18 months. Doesn't sound much but repeated for past 7 decades we see cheap devices like phones with more transistors than a supercomputer of 40 years ago .
2) Using more exotic materials like certain rare earth elements and cobalt we have been able to make small electric motors with high power to weight ratio.
But batteries are stubbornly resistant to increase in density, since that is limited by the basic chemistry. Lithium is light weight Coulumb for Coulomb (unit of charge) compared to other materials which makes it attractive for handheld and mobile applications.
But you cannot make it any more dense.
Thus cars, which have a minimum practical size dictated by the need to accommodate humans and their luggage, shipping etc, have not and will likely never see the same rate of increase in charge density which is key to how much energy they can store.
High voltage can help, as we see in power tools. But high voltage which also comes with risks when battery is damaged in collisions. Self driving cars are a long way off so short of reducing speeds, we can expect traffic collisions to remain high. We can expect continued progress in design to lessen the impact of collision, but often these come at the cost of rectifying the damage.
Yes batteries will improve but maybe not as fast as is assumed by EV enthusiasts, promoters and people with another agenda altogether.
