Hey you all finally made a thread I think I can reply to.
I think one of the next big improvements is going to be battery tech. And I think the Auto industry will drive this. There is currently a huge push to make electric cars a more viable option. And yes a lot of that is going to be making the use of power usage smarter. Which us flashlight guys may or may not benefit from this. But the real work is being done on how quickly the batteries charge. The way I understand it the goal is to have it take no longer than it does to fill up the gas tank to charge a automotive battery. A few months back I researched to the point that I had located the company doing the legwork for this. My search started with the Sears Craftsman "quick charge" drill. Asked a few questions on other forums and I found the site. I was thinking if they were a traded stock I might invest.
Now I am not a tech guy. But the way I understand it. They are working on opening up more charging channels similar to increasing the read/write speed of memory sticks. They plan to be able to charge a cell phone in under a minute. And a car in the amount of time it take to fill the tank with gas. IMHO the auto industry will be dumping money in to this hand over fist. Just think of the implications of this in their industry. And while the battery chemistry may not be the same as ours. I would wager that some of that tech will be able to transfer to the batteries we use. If I find that site I will link it.
While I'm fond of the notion of electric vehicles and think that ubiquitous fast charging would help their adoption, I regret that I have to rain on your parade.
Charging a small battery like a cell phone or even a cordless power tool such as a drill in a short time isn't a terribly big challenge. Deliver the necessary power as efficiently as possible and keep the battery cool. Power delivery isn't a problem since a modest 120V / 15A circuit can easily deliver over 1kW without breaking a sweat. For small batteries, the surface area-to-volume ratio and relatively shallow housing depth make heat dissipation more manageable.
When you start talking about larger battery packs such as electric forklifts, you start running into limits on the ability to deliver enough sustained power to the pack using commonly-available electrical circuits. Take a small 425A-H * 12V pack - slightly more than 5kW-H. Rounding capacity to 5kW-H 30, 15, 7.5, 3.75 minute recharge times would respectively require 10, 20, 40, and 80kW of continuous power to recharge the pack. Keeping such a pack cool during such an operation requires some consideration, but can be done - and I gather is done in some applications since it's usually cheaper to invest in quick-charge equipment than additional packs when you routinely need more work out of it in a day than the pack has charge capacity.
For a large battery such as an electric car with a nominal 25kW-H pack, it becomes far more problematic. 30/15/7.5/3.75 minute recharge times require 50/100/200/400kW of sustained power delivery. While ~30 minute charging from near-0% to near-100% is manageable with dedicated high-capacity circuits, anything beyond is not so reasonable at the average residence or commercial facility. Even if the grid could deliver such loads without special provisioning, you have the challenge of delivering it to the pack (couldn't use the conventional charge port - would need massive contacts and likely special internal interconnects) and keeping it cool (95% efficient charging produces 2.5/5/10/20kW of wast heat; 98% efficient charging produces 1/2/4/8kW).
Rapidly-swapabble batteries is a concept that's been kicked around for decades, but only partially removes the need for staggering amounts of power delivered to scattered points. It would also be pretty expensive since the users would ultimately bear the capital cost of additional batteries floating around for their convenience.
Not to fear - another technology exists on the horizon with some promise!
About a year and a half ago, MIT announced a new battery chemistry they call a "semi-solid flow cell" - more catchingly referred to as "
Cambridge Crude" - which suspends the working components in a fluid that can be swapped in and out as needed. One imagines that most of the time, the same "fill" of fluid would remain in the "tank" and be recharged as a normal battery, but when a quick charge was needed it could be swapped for pre-charged fluid. I've read some speculation that various types of fluid could be used to alter its characteristics ... an "economy" fluid would be more energy-dense while a "performance" fluid would be able to deliver more instantaneous current.
Unfortunately, all that was 18 months ago and little has been said about it since. I suspect that one would need to be extremely careful handling the fluid to the point that swapping it would not be the 2-minute affair that pumping gas is for most. The need for fine components within the apparatus itself might also be a stumbling block to prototyping for commercialization.
Time will tell if it's little more than a science-journal curiosity or something that becomes a reality in a few more years.
). I'd love to see similar features implemented on most or all my lights. Especially because the advanced features can be easily "hidden" and the light operated as a simple one mode if that's what the user desires, no reason everyoene can't be happy with the UI.
