We mostly use the same 18650 cells everyone else uses for everything, it's not like we're waiting for custom batteries.

Again, the article specifically talks about improvements in car battery life since changes were made to tweak the chemistry (very likely in small dope ways).

The fact that the article states that this appears to result in longer life and the fact that you talk about your RC plane batteries not having a longer life would suggest that the fine specifics of the two batteries may well differ.