Sandia Researchers Puts Lithium Ion Batteries To The Test

Sandia National Lab researchers have been study the batteries, overcharging them, putting them into some of the most adverse conditions possible and heating them to extreme temperatures to observe how much abuse they can take before they blow up.
This research is looking at lithium-ion batteries to be part of hybrid electric-gasoline powered vehicles and plug-in hybrids.

Curent hybrid vehicles run on gasoline and use nickel-metal hydride batteries as the energy storage device for the electric motor. The intent of the battery portion of the research program is to replace the older type batteries with safe lithium-ion batteries that have six times the energy density of lead-acid batteries and two to three times the energy density of nickel-metal hydride batteries.
Peter Roth, lead researcher for Sandia’s say that the Lithium-ion batteries, generally found in laptop computers and power tools, have greatly improved over the past few years.

In fact,the results have been extremely positive.