lead-acid battery
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Lead is terrible stuff: damaging to humans in even small quantities, and persistent if it's improperly disposed of. Nonetheless, it's a central element of technology that has enabled a century of automobiles to be started via ignition keys rather than hand cranks--which occasionally broke the arms of hapless drivers. DON'T MISS: Who Knew? A Car Battery Is the World's Most Recycled Product Now it looks like 12-Volt lead-acid batteries will be sticking around into the 2020s, at least if auto-battery providers and auto companies have anything to say about it. The two industries have joined...
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Ford, Samsung's Twin Battery For Braking Regeneration, Stop-StartElectrification is becoming an increasingly important factor in improving the fuel efficiency of vehicles. Cars like the Toyota Prius hybrid made it mainstream, but there are varying degrees to which batteries can be used for saving fuel. MUST SEE: Elio 84-MPG Three-Wheel Prototype: Driven In...
Antony Ingram -
Electric-Car Battery Breakthroughs: Ultimate Guide
If it wasn't so important for the future of electric cars, it could almost get tiresome: Just how do you improve batteries for longer life, quicker charging and a greater range? It's a question being investigated by great minds all around the world, and has turned up some surprising and exciting...
Antony Ingram -
Could Hybrids Use Lead-Acid Batteries? Startup Says Yes
It's quite easy to forget that cars have been using batteries for years before hybrids and electric vehicles arrived. The humble lead-acid battery, the planet's most recycled product, has been starting engines and providing power for car electrics ever since such a thing was required. Now, battery...
Antony Ingram -
What's Best For Old Electric-Car Batteries: Reuse Or Recycling?
A common misconception of electric cars and hybrid vehicles is that at the end of a short battery life, the remainder is dumped in landfill and contributes ever more pollution to the Earth. Of course, we know this to be incorrect. Not only are the more common lead acid batteries the world's most...
Antony Ingram -
1914 Detroit Electric: Pretty Spry For A Century Old (Video)
For decades, old electric cars--those built from the 1890s to 1930 or so, when the last remnants of the industry died out--were nothing more than oddities. Tall, imposing, mostly resembling closed horse carriages, they were stately but sidelined reminders of an entirely vanished way of propulsion...
John Voelcker -
Just two months ago, we published an April Fool's piece about a fictional new BP cell research project that would allow battery packs to be refilled at fuel station pumps. Truth is stranger than fiction, truly. Yesterday, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology described a nascent research project--a real one--involving a battery that could recharge fully in mere minutes, by pumping out and refilling tanks that contain thick liquids that serve as the cell's electrodes. Liquid electrodes The idea is that the cell's cathode and anode are not solid metallic compounds, as in current battery...
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eBay Find: 1982 Lucas-Reliant Hybrid British Concept Car
The history of the auto industry is littered with the carcasses of the cars and companies that didn't make it. Modern hybrid-electric vehicles were first commercialized by Toyota, with its 1997 Prius (sold in the U.S. starting in 2000). But many concepts, development vehicles, one-offs, and other...
John Voelcker -
Porsche Recreates The Original Hybrid Car, 111 Years Later
The name Porsche has traditionally been associated with fast, rear-engine sports cars, and more recently with fast heavy SUVs and fast heavy four-door luxury sedans. But it all goes back to pioneering engineer Ferdinand Porsche. He also designed the prototype for what became the Volkswagen Beetle...
John Voelcker
