-----Original Message----- From: Jed Rothwell > Ah. So the latest is that they will use them. A few months ago they denied that, in the New York Times as I recall. Perhaps the managers cannot make up their minds.
Well many of us Toyota fans were disappointed to learn they had jumped on the lithium bandwagon. Given Toyota is usually a step ahead of the rest, this does not bode well, unless it was a defensive measure only. BTW - Jed, as a historian of Science with emphasis on alternative energy, you may appreciate the latest piece on the EEStor Blog site. http://bariumtitanate.blogspot.com/ It concerns a June 11, 1911 NYT article in which Edison claims to have "perfected a battery which can be recharged in three or four minutes and which will run fifty or sixty miles without being recharged." It is known that Edison had invented a nickel-iron battery ten years earlier, and several other types of alkaline cells with normal rates of charging, so one wonders if this one was a breakthrough, due to the fast charge, and what became of it. Like the "Grove Cell", it might have depended on an exotic material - one that Edison knew was not worth pursuing THEN, but today, who knows ? We also know Edison tried many types of carbon as light-bulb filaments; and that a few startup companies today are claiming great things for a CNT battery (carbon nanotube). Could Edison have somehow made a batch of nanotubes nearly 100 years ago? http://www.tomshardware.com/news/mit-cnt-replace-batteries,2391.html Jones
