Briefing | Charging up for a long ride

Lithium remains the car-battery material of choice

But future designs may have double the storage

Apr 25th 2020

WHEN, A DECADE ago, a new generation of electric vehicles (EVs) started to appear on the roads, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology spent a year tracking the habits of almost 500 American motorists to see how suitable such vehicles would be for them. Nearly a third, they found, could have completed most of their journeys using an EV with a range of only 100 miles (160km). On the half a dozen or so occasions that people needed to travel farther, they could have charged up en route, or hired a petrol-powered car.

This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline “Charging up for a long ride”