""At least once a week we hear about a new breakthrough in battery cell performance that is set to revolutionize e-mobility or energy storage in general. However, very few of these 'hyped up' reports make it into applications outside the lab."

"In many cases, this is because they cannot be reproduced outside the original laboratory," reports Prof. Dr. Nella M. Vargas-Barbosa, Chair of Electrochemistry at the Bavarian Center for Battery Technology (BayBatt) at the University of Bayreuth. She is the lead author of a recently published article.

Not my words, but certainly in line with my evaluation regarding the myriad of "new and improved" lithium battery announcements.  How many of those will actually make it to commercialization?  The few that survive the gauntlet will, undoubtedly, be significant in the progress of lithium ion battery technology and promote advances in commercial applications of that technology into the market place, but many are called and few are able to make it through to the end of that gauntlet.

One interesting article regarding the race for Solid State Lithium Batteries, with the above quotes included, is to be found at the following link:

Benchmarking the reproducibility of all-solid-state lithium battery performance (msn.com)

The main purpose of the article appears to point out that are no uniform standards when it comes to reporting on research into solid state lithium battery research.

The same is probably true for the Holy Grail of lithium battery research:  Lithium Air Batteries.

And the same is true for all of the other "New and Improved" battery technologies.  We have a new "Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread regarding battery research" candidate every week or possibly even more often.  They all have to go through the "Gauntlet" of the long and arduous process of overcoming all the obstacles between their reported stelar success in the Lab and the ultimate goal of appearing on the shelf at Wal Mart for the general public to purchase.  The Gauntlet imposes lethal blows on one applicant after another as the latest "Next Best Thing" leaves the security of the lab and labors through the lethal process of the Gauntlet.

That doesn't mean that none of the myriad of "Next Best Things" will make it successfully through the Gauntlet.  On the contrary, eventually some will succeed, but don't let that rattle your confidence in lithum as a long term battery major player in the wider field of the total battery market.  Zinc Air, Aluminium Air are just a couple of the loudly touted competitors among the many who claim they will displace Lithium in future batteries and all the while we have that myriad of different types of lithium contestants in the laboratories around the world that are carrying the banner of better and better lithium contenders as well.  Life is complicated and that portion of life devoted to finding the most perfect battery is no exception, but investors in lithium companies should be able to sleep well and not lose sleep for at least another decade or two about lithium being displaced in the field of mobile battery applications.  Certainly there is plenty of time  left for lithium to be "King" in that area after LAC turns the words "In Development" into "In Production" as related to Thacker Pass.  

Now as to the other "problem", the continuous cacophony about new lithium mines and their discoveries.  It seems once a week someone else discovers a large pool of lithium brine or a new lithium mineral resource in their backyard when they were digging a hole for a new backyard swimming pool and they plan to turn that into a new lithium mine in a month or two.  Hold on, Bucko.  It takes years and big bucks to turn that backyard swimming pool find into a genuine producing lithium mine and 99% of those Fool's Gold Lithium discoveries aren't going to make it, especially when the spot price of lithium is in or near the bottom of the commode.

The "Journalists" are quick to talk about Joe Blow's backyard lithium discovery, but just how many articles do you ever read about how Joe Blow went belly up trying to turn his swimming pool into a commercial lithiium producing mine, eh?  NONE!  They never report on the true nature of that Gauntlet, the one for new lithium proposed mines.

The one thing that keeps my faith in LAC up these days is knowing about how major are the obstacles for the wannabees to overcome before they can be a real "contender" in the race to become a production lithium mine.  That race truly is a "Gauntlet" and the majority of the Newbies ain't gonna make it!

JMO

The above was my attempt to address the "competition" regarding LAC and Thacker Pass.  It doesn't address the problem of low prices for LCE on the world market.  That is entirely another problem, but as the wannabees drop into the dust pan of history and the "Majors" adjust the production down we will eventually see a solution to the present sub $11,000 per metric ton of lithium carbonate.  Lithium mining is the best demonstration for the concept of "survival of the fittest".  

LAC is one of the "fittest".

Okiedo