Reference has been made recently to advances in Ultracapacitors.
There have been some. Alone, however, they are still a long way
from satisfactory for automotive use ... except of course, for a
monster sound-system...uh... if you are a "lowrider" (aren't most
vorts?).
However, if designed into a batt-cap, they make a lot more sense.
Here is a state of the art Maxwell module offered on eBay,
mentioned today on another forum.
http://tinyurl.com/ppr83
58 Farads and 15 volts, for ~$180 if you are the lone bidder -
about the wholesale price. This is roughly equivalent to a
watt-hour, if my morning math is not off.
You would need a thousand of them to get to one kWh which is too
little for an automobile and about the cost of a new Rolls (no,
better make that a Bentley).
IOW not even close to what is needed for you Prius.
Jones
