The chemistry and assembly of battery cells, and the system design of battery packs, are completely independent disciplines. I understand where the parent commenter is coming from - all the headlines make out that Tesla has some new battery (cell) tech. They don't - they just cleverly assemble Panasonic cells.
You cannot reduce "battery technology" simply to the cell level. Because the cell isn't really battery tech in that pedantic sense either. If you're going to say the things that make batteries functional in their applications aren't part of the tech, then you're left with defining batteries merely as the chemical reactions that take place. It's like saying the glass housing isn't part of light bulb technology because it's not the element that actually gives off light. That the legs on a chair are not pair of chair technology because it's not the part you actually sit on.
You cannot divorce the things that make something function in any practical sense for the concept of that area of technology.
You seem to be taking issue with this topic because some articles imply it's the cell that's been innovated. You have a point: The articles should be clearer. But the failure of those articles to properly make that distinction doesn't mean it's not part of battery technology.
Let's make this simpler: There is battery cell technology and there is battery management technology. Both are part of high tech implementations of battery systems.
You're absolutely correct, and it matters not one bit because for the general public (and even the not-so-general public of HN readers) they don't care that much about the difference and it really doesn't matter much if at all for the topic at hand.
Absurd. Charge management has everything to do with thermal management and service life optimization, which in turn has everything to do with packaging and chemistry.
They are not completely independent, the pack has to understand cell technology. That's like saying to develop a good cluster you have to understand nothing about individual servers.
And Tesla actually has new cell technology and new pack technology that has nothing to do with Panasonic.
