21700 battery new standard?

Is the 21700 the new standard for lithium?

Does it Las longer than 18650?

Tesla has adopted the 21700. Therefore, there will be research to advance this size. And yes, it's packs more punch and lasts longer than 18650.

I think there are manufacturers who are trying to make it the new standard for lights. Only slightly wider in diameter and roughly the same length as an 18650. But at the high end, offers about 40% more capacity than the largest 18650.

Now some charger manufacturers need to get their chargers right as my main chargers (XTAR and Nitecore) can't charge protected 21700s as the protection circuits end up making the cells too long to fit into the brackets.

I have no faith in Tesla. The company has dismal record in reliability. Toyota just made new type of battery but it won't call it lithium ion. it is new standard for battery.

Not for flashlights, as we don't currently see a lot of offerings.

I don't care for the added capacity, since runtimes aren't all that important to me and the added width/length isn't all that appealing.

However, for some, they want the new form-factor.

Chris

To make something a standard you need to win the market first. Not even a sign of that with Tesla which exists entirely because of huge government funding injections. Once that ill practice stops — Tesla is history. So there is no fundamental base for this form factor to become a standard.

All other applications — will they redesign their batteries to make their devices larger when an entire world strives to build smaller gadgets? I guess — not.

vadimax said:

To make something a standard you need to win the market first. Not even a sign of that with Tesla which exists entirely because of huge government funding injections. Once that ill practice stops — Tesla is history. So there is no fundamental base for this form factor to become a standard.

All other applications — will they redesign their batteries to make their devices larger when an entire world strives to build smaller gadgets? I guess — not.

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Better do a little more reading first. In a couple countries Tesla is the biggest selling car. That's by choice of the people.

I hope it doesn't become the standard for EDC flashlights. Small 18650 lights (like a Zebralight SC64) is about as large as I'm willing to go for EDC. There's just no way to design a pocketable 21700 light that is comfortable to carry. It's fine for a dedicated light to carry on a walk or throw into a coat pocket. Pants pocket... no way; I don't want to listen to "Is that a flashlight in your pocket or are you just glad to see me" jokes.

JimIslander said:

Better do a little more reading first. In a couple countries Tesla is the biggest selling car. That's by choice of the people.

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First: You mix fashion and standard. Fashion lasts for one season mostly, sometimes for a couple of years. Standard lasts for decades.

Next: We are talking battery production. This is world market share: https://www.statista.com/statistics/235323/lithium-batteries-top-manufacturers/. Tesla not even listed here.

I've been running 18650's for years. Will continue to use 18650's for many years to come.

May be this photo might help to understand the issue:


Is SC64 EDCable? -- Definitely yes! A SC64c LE is in my pocket right now. SC700? -- Well... How to tell it politely?

Cordless tool manufacturers have embraced the 21700 cell size for their battery packs.

SubLGT said:

Cordless tool manufacturers have embraced the 21700 cell size for their battery packs.

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They're not going anywhere, IMO, but they're not 'burnin' down the house' in the flashlight world.

Maybe in the vape world?

Chris

My Zebralight SC62W is awesome with 18650, not really needing anything bigger. Perfect EDC.

Tesla must be something like the Godwin's Law of tech forums.

Tesla is likely the number 1 consumer of 21700s right now by a good margin. Tool manufacturers are likely number 2. For a company like Tesla, taking ~100 cells out of an automotive pack with similar capacity/power density probably means something to their cost structure. For tool manufacturers it offers some power bumps and probably reduces their costs without engineering fundamentally new packs to deal with voltage bumps or additional strings. Although they've seemingly not all made the jump to 21700 - I gather that Ryobi is still 18650 in their new 3/6/9Ah packs.

Most other players in the market that come to mind are either small-time or nonexistent. Laptops seem to be moving steadily to lipo so their cylindical cell consumption is falling. The E-bike industry is likely a good deal smaller than power tools. Vaping probably at or below e-bikes. Flashlights are probably at or below vaping. All of these players surely follow the trends set by the bigger players, assessing their embedded base against future trends in availability.

For flashlights a longstanding appeal for 18650 has been their general compatibility with a pair of 123A primary cells so long as the device was comfortable with multiple nominal voltages so long as you didn't mind a little battery rattle. However that seemingly drew its roots to the pre-power tool era of high-current cells where laptop 18650s with nominal ~3C discharge could generally keep up with the power delivery of 123As. Today's high-current li-ion chemistries are now a league ahead (i.e. some of the 30A-capable 18650s that can produce >100 watts) and many designs mandate high-rate 18650s. 21700s seemingly are a thing for integrated-cell applications as much as loose/swap-able cell applications.

Like the vaping industry the flashlight business will likely follow the trends set by others as it reads the tea leaves of present and future availability. My assumption is that the 21700 will be like the 18650 of a ~decade ago - the formfactor that everyone makes any new chemistry available in.

For now, any light taking 21700 doesn't appeal to me. I have 14500, 18650 and 26650 lights, as well as AA, AAA, C and D lights. I'm actually trying to narrow down the different battery types, not expand on them! If they catch on enough, I would probably get rid of my 18650 lights and batteries and make the switch. I got rid of CR123 lights and batteries and currently EDC lights that take 14500/AA, a more practical solution imho.