Tesla buys ultracapacitor company to boost energy density

Tour of Tesla battery gigafactory for invited owners, Reno, Nevada, July 2016Maxwell Technologies, a San Diego company that specializes in ultracapacitor energy storage, announced Monday that it is being bought by Tesla in a stock swap valued at $218 million. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said in the past that he expects ultracapacitors could provide a more likely bet for a breakthrough in energy storage than batteries. Maxwell...

Supercapacitor energy density could soar using contact-lens polymer

contact lens (photo via Wikimedia Commons)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...