'Tis rumored that the Chinese factories are ramping up to product a vast oversupply of Tesla battery packs. Rumored, also, that Tesla's sales are not growing as fast as expected, for whatever reason.
So!
This sets me a-ponderin' what I might do, had I access to a supply of cheap(-ish), mass-produced electric-car battery packs. There are some very interesting possibilities, and those are just things I come up with during a morning walk. (Not necessarily much practicality nor commercial potential, but they're kind of nifty ideas*.)
This is one of those interesting cases of demand driving supply, and supply enabling new demand. Increased demand leads to tooling up for mass production, which brings costs down, and soon new markets are opened up.
This already happened, on a smaller scale, with the battery and motor technology for model airplanes. Within living memory, the idea of an electric model airplane was absurd; the battery and motor technology for such things didn't exist, at least at anything like a mass-market price.
Over the last couple of decades, though, the improved technology → new applications → expanded market → economies of scale cycle has gone through many iterations**, and now we have truly awesome tech available for cheap.
And, in the past few years, this tech has been getting into portable computers and such (batteries; remember laptops with NiMH or even NiCd batteries? Ugh) and cordless power tools (batteries and high-performance brushless motors).
Happens with a lot of technology. Once the cycle gets rolling, you never know what will develop.
* OK, here are the ones from this morning: a reversible-driving-position electric tug for moving a boat trailer up and down a steep driveway or trail, and a spiffy high-tech fishing boat that maneuvers kind of like a spacecraft, with a vectorable main drive and thruster clusters. Neither of these needs a Tesla-scale battery. Probably neither is a marketable product, but so what?
** Wording corrected.
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