If you’d believed the hype around the first batch of autonomous concepts a decade or so ago, you’d have expected to be being driven home from the pub by now in a truly driverless car with no steering wheel.
Yet the mood has long since shifted, and now a line has been drawn between driver-assistance technology and true autonomy that cars seem unlikely to ever cross - for many reasons, but perhaps chiefly the legislative nightmare they open up and the funding they require.
The idea of solid-state technology as a means of bringing down the cost and weight of EV batteries – while improving range, power density and resistance to degradation – has been around even longer than any serious discussion about autonomous cars.
