Tesla talking with Samsung to supply battery cells

Tesla Motors (NASDAQ: TSLA) could diversify its supply chain by signing up a new battery cell maker. Tesla Motors is talking with Samsung SDI to supply battery cells, according to a report in the Korean Herald. This would diversify a critical component in Tesla’s supply chain, and potentially give the company a much-needed boost…

Continue reading

Sodium-air battery research shows promise compared to Lithium-air research

Lithium-air batteries have been one of the supposed saviors of electric vehicles, with ultra-high energy density.  Some researchers at the Institute of Physical Chemistry at Justus-Liebig-University Gießen in Gießen, Germany have developed Sodium-air battery technology they say is far better than Lithium-air.  The key flaw of Lithium-air batteries is, according to…

Continue reading

The Super Supercapacitor | Graphene Supercapacitors

This film (a part of GE’s Focus Forward film series) goes over a break-through in graphene supercapacitors, technology that could replace lithium-ion batteries for all sorts of gizmos.  The video describes this as one of those fortuitous accidents where they were studying Graphene for one purpose, but found that it…

Continue reading

The inconvenient bankrupcy of battery maker Ener1

Lithium battery maker Ener1 inconveniently declared bankruptcy the day after President Obama’s State of the Union declared support for the domestic advanced battery industry. Any company can run into trouble if the market conditions shift, that’s what bankruptcy courts are for. Last week when lithium-ion battery maker Ener1 entered bankruptcy proceedings it was…

Continue reading