The Battery Timeline
Two centuries of the battery, told by chemistry rather than by invention alone, so you can see which ones arrived, which ones lasted, and which are still working. Filter by chemistry or by the kind of event. Select any entry to open the detail and its source.
Most battery timelines are a list of inventions, which makes every chemistry look equally significant and equally alive. Measured instead by how long each has been in commercial service, the picture is different: the oldest rechargeable chemistry is still the most widely made, and the one that dominates the conversation is the newest thing on the chart.
How this is put together. Entries are grouped into eras rather than spaced by year, because a literal scale would leave most of the page empty and crush the last thirty years into a corner. Each entry names its source, and each can be opened for the detail behind it.
On the historical entries. The lithium-ion sequence, from Whittingham in the early 1970s through Goodenough in 1980 and Yoshino in 1985 to the market in 1991, is taken from the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2019 documentation. Nineteenth and early twentieth century entries are drawn from the standard published histories of electrochemistry and are given with the year conventionally attributed to each. Where a date is disputed between sources, the entry says so rather than choosing silently.
Service life bars. These measure the years since a chemistry entered commercial service, not since it was first demonstrated in a laboratory, and they run to the present day for any chemistry still in volume production. They are a measure of longevity, not of market share, output or importance.
Spotted something missing or wrong? Email editor@thebatteryledger.com.