Elon Musk doesn't get really get distracted, I think. I would guess that it's more of a priority thing. He probably couldn't make proper use of current supercapacitor technology without getting TESLA's infrastructure to the point it's at now.
Watching him in an interview is really telling. He pauses regularly, but it's not a verbal placeholder; it's like his linguistic faculties are playing catch-up to the workings of his mind. Or he's just in the habit of checking that his brain is loaded before he goes and shoots off his mouth.
In the short- to medium-term, supercapacitors have great potential to speed charging, especially in intermittent, hard-charge scenarios like regenerative braking, where excess charge could then be transferred at a slower rate to a battery bank.
A thought I had eons ago, not an original one, by the way,
led to my original discovery of the existence of supercapacitors. I thought that if one could store the energy in a bolt of lightning, we would have no shortage of electricity.
So imagine tall buildings around the world equipped with city-powering supercapacitor arrays collecting electricity from the atmosphere. Imagine lightning rods on barns providing electricity for a month after each thunderstorm.
And imagine recharging your electric car through plates set in the ground while you sit in line at the drive-thru, waiting for your breakfast sandwich and
coffee.
-CK
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-Robert A. Heinlein
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