廉價電池和智能軟件將掀起下一波科技革命

????數十年來，隨著廉價商品化硬件的普及，電腦、互聯網和移動領域的優秀創業公司層出不窮。有些已經開始從根本上改變科技與社會。同樣的事情也正在鋰離子電池領域發生，雖然這種變革仍然處于早期階段。

????過去，常用于筆記本電腦和手機上的電池大多是由亞洲工廠生產的，現在，類似的電池產品容量開始比過去要高得多，同時價格也變得足夠便宜，足以對能源和汽車行業產生重大影響。

????特斯拉的“電池雄心”

????特斯拉汽車公司正以這種“廉價電池理論”作為商業模式的潛在贏利點，目前其超級電池工廠正在內華達州的里諾市緊張施工。它大概也是引領這股“電池即平臺”潮流的知名度最高的公司。但除此之外，還有很多創業公司、大型能源公司、互聯網公司、太陽能和清潔能源企業、汽車制造商和電池行業的龍頭企業也都在推動這股潮流。

????在特斯拉的業務版圖中，研發一款安全、高效、低成本，同時能夠用于幾乎任何領域的電池，與制造令消費者目眩神迷的電動汽車的重要性可相提并論。特斯拉的電池目前已經開發出多種用途，比如該公司最近推出的家用電池Powerwall，它可以儲存家用太陽能電池板收集的電能。另一款商用電池產品Powerpack，則可以在夏季午后用電高峰時為企業提供儲備電力，從而避免使用既昂貴又不環保的峰值電廠（即只在用電高峰時啟用的發電廠）。

????Decades of sexy computing, web and mobile startups have emerged out of Silicon Valley built on the backs of low-cost, commoditized hardware. Some of these startups have gone on to fundamentally change technology and society. A similar thing is starting to happen—though at an early stage—around batteries.

????While these batteries, mostly manufactured in bulk in Asian countries, have long been widely used in laptops and cell phones, similar batteries are now beginning to be made at a much higher volume and are becoming cheap enough to start to have an influential effect on both the power and auto industries.

????Tesla’s battery ambitions

????Tesla (with its planned huge battery factory under construction outside of Reno, Nevada) is using this low-cost battery thesis as an underlying tenant for its business model, and is probably the most well-known company leading this ‘battery-as-a-platform’ wave. However, there are many other startups, big power companies, Internet companies, solar and clean energy firms, auto makers and battery giants pushing this trend, too.

????Tesla’s business is as much about creating a battery pack that can be used as efficiently, safely and as low cost as possible for whatever application, as it is about wowing customers with a sexy electric car. Its batteries are being used in many more applications such as the recent announcement of the Powerwall, which stores energy from a rooftop solar panel in a home, and the Powerpack, which can provide a utility with a burst of energy to help it avoid using an expensive and dirty peaker plant (a power plant only used during peak grid times) on a hot Summer afternoon.

????繼發布這兩款電池產品之后，特斯拉CEO埃隆?穆斯克又在最近的收益電話會議上表示，該公司目前使用的鋰離子電池“比較一般”（其合作伙伴為日本松下公司），特斯拉的價值其實取決于電池模塊組的機械、電子和軟件工程。

????Following Tesla’s launch of its grid batteries two weeks ago, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on the company’s earnings call last week that the lithium-ion battery cells that the company uses (its partner is Panasonic) are “relatively generic.” Tesla’s value instead lies in the mechanical, electrical and software engineering of the battery modules and pack, said Musk.