It all depends on how you manage the battery and what the battery is made to do. Digital Cameras, laptops, mobile phones etc are all items that have short lives. Cell phones are usually replaced every 2-years why would somebody invest in a advanced battery for them? These items are relatively disposable because tech has such a short life cycle. However standard car batteries properly taken care of can last 5-6 years. Pacemaker batteries can go for over 10 years. The Opportunity rover batteries on Mars have been going for over 8 years. It all depends on how you build and how the battery is maintained. The standard battery warranty on a Tesla is 8-years. The top gear UK guys have already shown that they have a very specific anti-electric car battery agenda already so I don't listen to them much in this area.
Standard car batteries are lead-acid and have an absolutely horrific energy density. They absolutely suck for use as a power source for an electric car, and there's a reason why absolutely zero manufacturers use them for that purpose.
Pacemaker batteries last for a long time because a pacemaker is a very low-drain device which makes it relatively easy to design a reasonably sized battery that has a low-enough self-discharge rate to last a decade. If you've ever seen a pacemaker, you'll note that the vast majority of the device is the battery and that's necessary to get a long enough life.
The issue with cell phone batteries (which are essentially the same LiIon technology as the batteries in the Tesla) is that they see a lot of charge/discharge cycles and their charging control is not as good as it could be, partially because of the desire to have them recharge quickly and partially because of the design life issues you mentioned.
All that said, none of this is relevant to my criticism of the Tesla SuperCharger in any way, shape, or form.
My criticism is that fast charging shortens battery life. That's a fact and there's no way around it (regardless of what Tesla's marketing department has to say).
My criticism is that 30 minutes is still too long.
My criticism is that fast-charging a car for 30 minutes uses more power than my
entire 5-bedroom house uses in 24 hours. The electrical grid can't handle that on any sort of large scale; it's just not sustainable.
My criticism is that the charging stations can only handle 2 cars at once at the fast-charge rate.
Is this an improvement? Sure. Does it still leave the Tesla far less convenient for extended trips than a conventional car? Yes. Even if we postulate a nationwide network of these stations it's not even close to the convenience of gasoline's 5-minute re-fuel for a 300-400 mile range.
Do I think that this makes the Tesla slightly more viable? Yes. Do I think any of this is even a sliver of indication that batteries are the right way to go for EVs? Not for even a single unit of Planck time.
In response to what's going on with fuel cells, there is
rapid development in the field.
Daimler has a small fleet of fuel cell buses that have just had a successful 3-year trial (operating and maintenance costs 40% less than diesel buses),
San Francisco and Oakland are in the process of deploying their own fuel cell buses, and Honda, Toyota, Hyundai, Nissan, Mazda, Fiat, Audi, VW, Mercedes, and BMW are all aggressively pursuing fuel cell technology (Mercedes will have a fuel cell vehicle in
volume production in 2014).
The main reason that we don't hear too much about fuel cell vehicles is because the research is being done by established companies that don't need to keep making headlines to keep people interested.
Yes, fuel cells are still more expensive than batteries and they will be for some time. But I still see batteries as, at most, a stop-gap measure until fuel cells are ready for prime time. I just cannot see batteries as the long-term "fuel tank" for electric vehicles.
ZV
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