Engineers are nothing if not creative. Significant research is going into improved ways of storing electricity, including alternatives to the currently dominant lithium-ion battery-cell chemistry in electric cars. That includes using supercapacitors to substitute for storage batteries in some circumstances. DON'T MISS: Batteries from junkyard... Supercapacitor energy density could soar using contact-lens polymer
Engineers are nothing if not creative. Significant research is going into improved ways of storing electricity, including alternatives to the currently dominant lithium-ion battery-cell chemistry in electric cars. That includes using supercapacitors to substitute for storage batteries in some circumstances. DON'T MISS: Batteries from junkyard... 
Even after they have degraded too much for continued automotive use, the lithium-ion battery packs in electric cars still have significant useful storage capacity. That's led several automakers to experiment with alternative uses for these "second-life" batteries in stationary energy storage. Battery packs can store energy generated by renewable... 
The Tesla "gigafactory" near Reno, Nevada, is already billed as the largest lithium-ion battery cell plant in the world. But Tesla has discussed plans for at least one additional gigafactory, presumably to meet demand for battery cells related to large-scale electric-car production outside the U.S. One Finnish city is now making an official bid... 
The signals are now unmistakable: Toyota will offer a battery-electric car for sale in 2020. After a decade of condemning electric cars as suitable only for the smallest vehicles in around-town use, the world's largest car company is changing its tune. Yet another news story out of Japan has company executives suggesting that it has finally decide... 
The increasing importance of batteries for electric cars, renewable energy, and consumer electronics has researchers looking for alternatives to the currently-dominant lithium-ion chemistry. But could one of those alternatives be a combination of junkyard scarp metal and household chemicals? That's what a group of researchers are proposing, in the... 
It goes without saying that mass adoption of electric cars would lead to a massive decrease in oil consumption over time. So far, though, the oil industry hasn't seemed to give plug-in electric cars much attention. ExxonMobil and OPEC have both predicted that, even by 2040, electric cars will make up less than 10 percent of global new-car sales... 
Supersonic airliners haven't flown since 2003, when the last Concorde was retired. But could supersonic planes carrying large number of passengers make a comeback—and with electric power no less? That's the vision of Luke Workman, a designer of lithium-ion battery packs who believes all-electric supersonic aircraft are attainable. DON'T...