Bout frikin time, this should have been a standard 5-10 years ago!

It would be nice to have those electric cars right now (with near $4 gas prices). However, there has been one substantial obstacle to "practical" electric cars, and that has been battery technology. All current forms of batteries have too many trade-offs to work well. Each car company producing hybrids has had to make a choice on what to use. Honda's first used Lead-Acid (I don't know about the new ones), the Toyota uses NiMH, and some new cars are coming out with Lithium Ion.

Here is a short list of the pros and cons of current battery technology. It's not hard to see why it's a tough choice on what to use:

Lead-Acid: Excellent in current output and capacity, poor life span, dismal power to weight, and contains hazardous materials.
NiMH: No harmful materials, Good power to weight, quick charge time, and good life span. Dismal long-term storage (batteries self-discharge in as short as a month), and poor high-current output.
NiCd: Excellent High-current output on par with Lead-Acid. Poorer power to weight versus NiMH. Cadium is rare and hazardous.
Lithium Ion: Best power to weight. Okay on high-current. Can't charge very fast. Worst on hazardous material (explodes), and worst on life span (1-2 years tops).

Thanks for your input. I've read somewhere that batteries doubled their capacities in a 10 year frame, shouldn't we expect such progress from that time on?
Especially with these technologies growing in peoples interest day by day...

Maybe we'll get to a point where it pays off to replace a lithium battery every two or three years instead of maintaining a combustion engine running.

I guess market will tell.

Best Regards