Have you seen this :- World First: Graphene Battery Plant Gears up for 2016 Commercial Production Spanish company Graphenano has introduced a graphene polymer battery it says could allow electric vehicles to have a maximum range of up to 497 miles. The battery can also be charged in just a few minutes, is not prone to explosions like lithium batteries, and can charge faster than a standard lithium ion battery by a factor of 33. The batteries are expected to be manufactured in Yecla, Spain and will have an energy density of 1,000 Wh/kg. For perspective, conventional lithium batteries have an average energy density of just 180 Wh/kg. To top it all off, the battery does not exhibit memory effect, a phenomenon in which charging a battery multiple times lowers its maximum charge

Eoin Treacy's view

Thank you for this snippet and no I had not previously heard of Graphenano but it captured my attention because it sounds almost too good to be true. 

According to this post from graphene-info.com dated November 15th the company expected to produce its first batteries in January and February. This one from December talks about the cost being 77% below the cost of lithium ion batteries.  There are other stories about companies in South Korea developing highly efficient polymer batteries and MIT has been developing polymer cells for use in solar panels. 

In fact the product being developed by SolarWindow and expected to launched towards the end of 2017 at the earliest also uses polymer technology. 

This article from El Mundo suggests a Chinese private sector electronics manufacturer Chint owns 10% of the company and assists in manufacturing which will take place in Spain. They also mention Volkswagen as one of the first potential customers.  

These news items suggest 2016 is going to be an exciting year for battery technology. It also suggests that while oil prices have likely bottomed the potential for significant upside ls likely to be capped by the accelerating pace of technological innovation.