Will this patent monopoly on the new tech be used to kill it, just like NiMH batteries were prevented from powering cars [google.com] by the car and oil corporations?

Battery technology will experience a sort of Moore's Law with the demand for hybrid and all-electric vehicles. This is just one of the first stories.

Probably not. Ultra-capacitors [maxwell.com] will be hugely superior to batteries; more charge / recharge cycles by orders of magnitude, much higher current capabilities on both charge and discharge, environmentally friendly. They're just a little bit below total battery energy levels on a by weight / volume comparison right now. If and when they cross that line, batteries will become old-tech for applications like cars.

"battery life" is measured in ampere-hours (Ah) and is the measure of how many hours it'd take to discharge a fully charged battery at a current draw of 1A. So a battery with 20Ah capacity will allow 20 hours of use at a current draw of 1A. Note that this is never an accurate measurement as voltage levels of the battery fluctuate depending on charge level and different levels of current draw will result in different battery capacities. A 20Ah battery discharged at 1A will provide more energy than the same battery discharged at 20A.

Batteries have internal resistance which limits their current handling ability, so some types of batteries (NiMH for example) can not sustain currents of more than 2x the capacity of the battery (an 1800mAh NiMH AA battery shouldn't be discharged at more than ~3.6A). Higher current draw = higher battery temperatures = bad.

This also affects charging time, as you are again limited by battery temperature. You can't charge a battery in 1 minute at 50A because of the internal resistance of the battery. You CAN charge capacitors very quickly at very high currents, because their resistance is extremely low.

Lead Acid Batteries must always be stored in a charged state. If the battery is left in a discharged state, a condition known as Sulfation occurs which makes charging the battery again difficult.

I agree partly, i give you that extracting the raw materials can be very harmful, but the energy required shouldn't be harmful. Still, we've thrown so much material away now, should we still be short on materials ? I think much money is to be made by 'harvesting' landfills.

Bombs are generally devastating because they release energy quickly, not because they have a high energy density. For instance, a ton of TNT has around 4,000 MJ, and a ton of coal is around 30,000 MJ. Compare to Li-ion at 500 MJ/ton.

I have to disagree with your leading statement. The energy density of lithium-ion batteries today is adequate for making practical electric cars. Of course more is always better, and I'm optimistic that it can be improved further -- but energy density is no longer the big sticking point that it was.

The little two-seat Tesla Roadster with a 250-mile range has been demonstrated, and multiple companies are now working on more practical four-door cars which can have a 200-mile driving range. This doesn't require any breakthroughs, and it will get you "to the next town" with very few exceptions.

The critical areas that need improvement are cost and service life. Tesla Motors are projecting a life span of five years or 100,000 miles for their carefully managed battery pack. That's much better than the two years you stated. I think with the research that is ongoing, service life will further improve over the next several years. (And GM are betting on this happening to make their Chevy Volt concept workable.)

I think the requirement that cars be "refueled quickly" is overstated. The longer the range becomes, the less you need to refuel or recharge it quickly. With a dependable 200-mile driving range between charges, and the ability to recharge overnight at home, most people won't need to stop at a charging station mid-trip all that often. If you can get the range up to about 500 miles, then rapid charging would become moot for the great majority of people. (At least speaking for myself, I don't think I've ever driven more than 300 miles in a day's time, and I wouldn't want to drive more than 500 in a day if I could possibly avoid it.)

I have looked into flywheel storage technology. It looked promising several years ago, but battery technology advanced faster and has left flywheels behind. Notable problems you have with flywheels are: energy density, energy losses while the flywheel is spinning idle, and safety concerns about its failure modes.

Nothing... unless you live near a mine or a smelter.

http://www.semissourian.com/story/1195543.html [semissourian.com]

Enivornmentally freindly? I guess so if it's not in your backyard.

Charging the car in 5 minutes becomes much less of an issue when the car can have a "full tank" every day. However, that still doesn't solve the problem of long trips. However, if you look at the tesla roadster, it goes 250 miles on a single charge. If somehow the energy density of the batteries are doubled, then probably 90% of the trips people take are possible. If a true breakthrough is made and the energy density is increased by an order of magnitude, then virtually all long trips become possible.

You mentioned that vast expenses will have to be made to the electrical grid/ power generation to accommodate the new demand. This is true, but with the increased efficiencies produced by switching to electric vehicles not only will there be less pollution, but people should have more money in their pockets to pay for the upgrades. Then after the upgrades to the infrastructure have been made the improved efficiencies should help to continue to increase the standard of living, and improve the economy.

Firefly Energy is building foam-core lead-acid batteries [fireflyenergy.com] that claims to have energy densities as high as current generation NiMH batteries at much less weight and at 1/10th the cost.