Li-Ion Batteries Hit Final R&D Phase for Plug-in Cars

An anonymous reader writes "Tesla finally delivered its first production model of the all-electric Roadster this month. Coinciding with that, researchers from the big automakers and their outsourced startup labs are hitting stride in the development of cheap, high-powered lithium-ion batteries. These may actually end up in our garages. Toyota, in fact, says it's got enough of the chemistry down to roll out a test fleet for the plug-in Prius before the end of 2009. It's mass production of battery tech that's the holdup — which might mean Mercedes' electric hybrids beat the Prius to market en masse by 2010 or 2011."

Oh noes!!!

[morgan_greywolf]

Please, please, tell me they are not getting their batteries from Sony!

"50 cars caught fire on I-4 today."

Re:Still waiting

[CSMatt]

I'm still waiting for my hovercar. Parallel parking is a nuisance.

Re:Infrastructure?

[Loibisch]

Easy...
1) Buy an extension cable.
2) Find the nearest Starbucks.
3) Buy a cup of coffee.
4) Instead of plugging in your laptop you covertly plug in your car.
5) Profit! (for you)
Same difference, isn't it? :D

Re:Picture's for those that want to see the car!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Picture's"? WTF dude... is that like saying "There are three dog's who take walk's on most day's when their owner come's home after teaching lesson's to many kid's"?

One picture. Two pictures. No apostrophe. English, motherfucker... do you speak it?
 

Re:Picture's for those that want to see the car!

[Anonymous Coward]

He's from the "an apostrophe means 'look out, here comes an S'" school of English.

Re:Why now?

[QuickFox]

It's called product development.

Or, with an analogy, how will new computers hold up vs the current computers? If something was wrong with the current computers, you would think they should have built the new ones to start with.

(I do realize I'll be hanged for making an analogy without cars in it on Slashdot. But the argument is already about cars! Adding more cars into the analogy would probably cause a pile-up crash or something.)

Re:Rolling Timebombs?

[value_added]

How often does a car catch file after a crash? Only very rarely.

Wrong. Everyone knows that cars always explode after a crash. Sometimes, though, the explosion happens after the driver and occupants escape to a safe distance.

I've seen it myself hundreds of times, both on TV and in movies.

Re:Great News for the Coal Industry

[misleb]

That's why it would be great to recharge these cars from a solar or wind source, where possible.

That's why I recommend a wind generator be installed on every car. That way you can charge as you drive. Ever hang your hand out the car window and think "Wow, if I could just harness this power, I'd be rich!"

-matthew

Recursion!

[DeadCatX2]

Using a car analogy when the topic itself is cars would be recursion.

It would be even better if you could say that analogy with a LISP.