car

Most electric cars use either NiMH (nickel metal hydride) or lead-acid batteries (Anderson 28). Lead-acid cells are heavy for the amount of energy they can hold, which means the vehicles using them have to have a limited range (Anderson 28). Electric golf carts are a classic example (Anderson 28). Today's best-selling hybrid cars, notably the Toyota Prius and the Honda Civic, use NiMH batteries (Anderson 28). "Nickel cells have less initial safety issues than lithium batteries," says Spencer Quong, senior vehicles engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Berkley, California (Anderson 28). Lithium ion batteries have been with us for quite sometime now, long enough for us to see some major drawbacks (Anderson 28). They have a relatively short lifespan, and in extreme circumstances, can catch fire or explode (Anderson 28). however, new advances in lithium ion batteries by A123, a company based in Watertown, Massachusetts, found a way to make lithium ion batteries last 10 times as long as batteries before (Anderson 29). The batteries by A123 also pack twice the power of NiMH, and has a much lower rate of conflagration, or catching fire (Anderson 29).