@WheresTheMonkeyI covered this way back in 2012 when there was...

@WheresTheMonkey

I covered this way back in 2012 when there was some hand-ringing over competing materials. Glad to be back as a shareholder after many years away.

https://hotcopper.com.au/threads/ev-market-worth-103-13-billion-by-2017.1751840/#post-10297050

All of the smart research at the moment is directed towards silicon and nanomaterials (new word). Silicon has a theoretical capcity of 4200 mAh/g compared with graphite 372 mAh/g - yep, a whoping +11x. However a fundamental problem for silicon is the +300% expansion when charged, leads to stress failure after only a few cycles.

But you guessed it - GRAPHENE is the answer! A layered composite based on graphene with some silicon gives +5x times capacity with no expansion. There is also some successful research on silicon nanotube anodes however will be incredibly expensive as each nanotube is coated in a silicon oxide ceramic layer - so will me limited to tiny batteries.

One very important thing that researchers fail to mention is that any increase in anode capacity requires a corresponding increase in cathode mass. The NCM (nickel, cobalt, manganese) Cathode is the current material of choice so a +5x increase in battery capacity would require +5x times the weight of NCM cathode material.