The main impediment to mass electric-car adoption is price, and the driving force behind that is the cost of lithium-ion battery cells. The performance of those cells improves at about 7 percent a year, give or take: Either the same cell costs 7 percent less after a year, or a carmaker gets 7 percent more energy capacity for the same price. Those... Silicon anodes to boost lithium-ion battery capacity within a few years
The main impediment to mass electric-car adoption is price, and the driving force behind that is the cost of lithium-ion battery cells. The performance of those cells improves at about 7 percent a year, give or take: Either the same cell costs 7 percent less after a year, or a carmaker gets 7 percent more energy capacity for the same price. Those... 
Sometimes it's the task of the Tesla communications department to explain, or provide context, or simply clean up the confusion after CEO Elon Musk says or tweets something about the electric-car maker. In the latest case, it was Musk's statement about Tesla Model 3 production equipment that required the good people of the company's long-suffering... 
Just a handful of companies today make the bulk of battery cells used in plug-in electric cars worldwide. Now the largest single maker of electric-vehicle cells in China has expanded its focus, from the home market to global markets and specifically the U.S. The name, CATL, may not be familiar to North American electric-car advocates, but the... 
Battery-pack prices are the lowest they've ever been, and like a yoga-obsessed limbo contestant, they're primed to go even lower. A report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, based on a survey of "more than 50 companies," states the average cost of a electric-car battery pack is now $209 per kilowatt-hour. But the real shocker is the report's claim... 
As it stands today, Asia dominates the production of electric-car battery cells globally, with Japanese and Korean companies representing the bulk of the industry outside of booming Chinese makers. Europe, however, lacks a single major player in the fabrication and assembly of lithium-ion battery cells for cars that plug in. Now European leaders... 
Many automakers have announced they will electrify entire vehicle portfolios in the years to come. With more electrified cars on the road, battery production will become increasingly more important. Adding to the positive outlook for lithium-ion cell makers is Volkswagen's potential partnership with CATL (Contemporary Amperex Technology Company... 
Renault hasn't tackled the home-energy storage market to the degree its alliance partner Nissan has, but it has found another use for "second-life" batteries. The French brand has worked with UK-based Connected Energy to install two electric-car DC fast-charging stations powered by second-life batteries. Once the energy capacity of lithium-ion... 
General Motors has informed "a few hundred" owners of 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV electric cars that their cars could suffer from a problem with the lithium-ion battery pack that could cause it to fail without warning. The cars were among the very earliest Bolt EVs produced for public sale, so are likely concentrated in California and perhaps Oregon... 
Ten years ago, lithium-ion cell maker A123 Systems was a hot startup and a much-publicized company. This author, in fact, profiled the company for IEEE Spectrum in the technology magazine's September 2007 issue. The six years that followed proved enormously painful for the Massachusetts company, however. DON'T MISS: A123 Systems To Recall... ![StoreDot shows fast-charging battery cell, Cube Tech Fair, Berlin [via Periscope: Gruendermetropole]](http://images.hgmsites.net/tmb/storedot-shows-fast-charging-battery-cell-cube-tech-fair-berlin-via-periscope-gruendermetropole_100606667_t.gif)
It's one of the Holy Grails for battery researchers and electric-car advocates alike: a battery that could recharge in the same amount of time as it takes to stop for gasoline. Some of that can be provided by charging at higher rates, as Porsche's proposed 800-volt system for 15-minute fast charging would. But most of the change has to come deep...