I wrote:
Even a rapid partial recharge would be convenient. If you had to
drive 5 miles round trip to the grocery store but your battery was
almost dead, it would be great to quickly recharge 1/6th before setting off.
Imagine this scenario. You hop in the car to go grocery shopping. You
press the start button and a flashing red light on the dashboard
tells you the battery is almost out. With a standard battery you say:
"Woops. We need a partial recharge. Let us reschedule an hour from
now. How annoying!"
With a rapid recharge battery:
"Woops. We better plug in for 5 minutes. Let's make a shopping list."
As I said, I have experienced this kind of thing with the electric
bicycle, which recharges much slower than it discharges. I can easily
travel 4 miles in 15 minutes (16 mph), but before I leave I may need
to wait an hour for an exhausted battery to charge up enough.
16 mph, by the way, is plenty fast for urban transportation. A lot of
urban drivers wish they could keep up with that.
- Jed
