The Lithium Air Battery

At the Almaden Research Center of I.B.M. in San Jose, Calif., Mr. Wilcke’s team is trying to develop a new battery technology called lithium air that could allow a car to go 500 miles on a single charge. Most electric cars coming onto the market this year have a range of around 100 miles.

Such batteries theoretically could pack 10 times the energy density of the lithium ion batteries now used in electric cars because they use air drawn in from outside the battery as a reactant. That means lithium-air storage devices weigh less than lithium-ion batteries, a factor that also improves the performance of electric cars

His team had shown that lithium-air batteries could be recharged, something that had not been done before, BUT an electric car would need to pump 6,000 kilowatts to charge its battery.

The cost to drivers of plugging in to a rapid charging station might be prohibitive, given the demands that the devices place on the electric grid.

Also, the U.S. may not be the main arena for these modern vehicles. China’s forward thinking and fast pace technological developments of these electric cars has made them the focal point of these breakthroughs. The Chinese government has a goal that 50 percent of all new cars sold in China by 2020 will be battery-powered. That is what will change the game. So the U.S. needs to get on top of its game because we are quickly drifting behind many other advanced nations.