Batteries

Tesla Motors will open it first battery-swapping station before the end of the year.

Panasonic will invest hundreds of millions of dollars as a first installment in its gigafactory support.

Batteries are the key component in building practical electric cars. And for its first all-electric Leaf in 2011, Nissan developed its own proprietary lithium-ion battery pack--even planning and setting up its own assembly facilities to build them. That trajectory started back in 2007, but today...

By all indications, there will be an all-electric 2017 Chevrolet Sonic EV for which General Motors is targeting a range of 200 miles. And one of the keys to achieving such a range from a compact car will be a more energy-dense battery than those used today. DON'T MISS: GM's 200-Mile Electric Sonic...

It's likely the biggest question for the future of electric cars: How low can battery cost go, and how fast? Tesla Motors is thought to have the lowest cost-per-kilowatt-hour in the electric-car business, with some estimates suggesting the company is already approaching the crucial $200/kWh level...

As expected, Tesla Motors announced yesterday afternoon that it would build its first battery gigafactory outside Reno, Nevada. The electric-car maker released platitudinous statements from CEO Elon Musk, Nevada governor Brian Sandoval, and state Speaker Marilyn Kirkpatrick. Much of the business...

You see a lot in the press these days about the low sales of plug-in electric cars. While deliveries have risen every year--and have outpaced hybrid sales at the same point after launch--electric cars clearly remain only a tiny piece of the global car market today. But those low sales nonetheless...

A press conference to be held this afternoon may answer one of the major questions for the future of electric-car maker Tesla Motors: Where will it locate its gigafactory? The answer appears to be Nevada. The office of state governor Brian Sandoval said he would make a "major economic development...

Swiss bank UBS predicts home solar will be widely adopted in the next decade.

A Michigan-based startup called Sakti3 claims it has battery chemistry that doubles the energy density of today's best lithium-ion batteries. Speaking to Scientific American, Sakti3's co-founder and CEO Ann Marie Sastry says the firm's prototype solid-state lithium cells have reached 1,143...

It's one of the recurring questions asked by electric-car skeptics: Yeah, but what about all those battery packs? Won't they just end up in landfills? We know already that the 12-Volt lead-acid car battery appears to be the most-recycled consumer good in the world--though that's largely for safety...

There's a childish pleasure in seeing something disassembled to its component parts, whether it's a jigsaw puzzle, Lego set or an entire car. The Chevrolet Volt is new enough that you're unlikely to see too many broken up at scrapyards right now, but crash-damaged ones still give some individuals...

Existing lithium-ion batteries rely on the movement of lithium ions between the anode and cathode--and back--as the battery charges and discharges. It's one of the best options we have for powering electric vehicles (and most consumer electronic devices, for that matter) but there's still room for...

News of new battery technologies breaks regularly, most researchers claiming to have devised a system promising greater range, better stability, lighter weight, lower cost--all characteristics desirable in electric vehicles. All require a caveat though: This technology may never get beyond the...

Panasonic will reportedly invest funds and provide equipment for the massive lithium-ion cell factory.

Last month, electric-car owners finally learned the price of a replacement battery pack for the Nissan Leaf: a surprisingly low $5,500 after the old pack is traded in. Many advocates and Leaf owners promptly seized on the price to "prove" that Nissan could now build batteries for less than $250 per...

BMW has announced that it's open to sharing the battery technology it uses in its i3 and i8 plug-in vehicles with other automakers. The company hopes that by sharing the technology, which it co-developed with Samsung SDI, it will benefit from improved economies of scale. According to Automotive...

Three and a half years after the first Nissan Leaf went on sale, Nissan has announced the cost of a replacement lithium-ion battery pack for its electric car. It's a surprisingly low $5,499 (after a $1,000 credit for turning in the old pack, which is required), plus installation fees and tax. The...

Tesla CEO Elon Musk's announcement that the firm is planning to build a battery 'gigafactory' confirmed something we all knew would happen eventually--more electric cars means greater demand for batteries. U.S.-founded battery firm Boston-Power knows this too, and plans to expand its own operations...

As anyone with a smartphone, laptop or indeed a whole electric car will know, lithium-ion batteries degrade over time. Each time you charge and discharge the batteries, they lose a little capacity. Day to day you don't really notice, but over a year, or two, it means being able to use your phone...