Samsung Galaxy Note Battery Explodes

It seems that the batteries in phones melting are starting to make a comeback in news feeds yet again, with the latest being a Samsung Galaxy Note reported to have “exploded” (and by saying so, we mean that the battery has some issues) in the pants pocket of a 55-year old man in South Korea, resulting in some second degree burns on his right thigh. Read more...

Demand For 100% Electric-Powered Cars Is So Low, Toyota Has Basically Given Up On Them

Just as new electric plug-in vehicles are hitting the U.S. market, Japanese auto giant Toyota Motor Corporation (TYO:7203) has given the strongest signal yet that technology available today has greater potential to become the future of driving than battery-operated cars have ever been: hydrogen power.

Meanwhile, consumers themselves have not exactly warmed up to vehicles that run purely on electricity, thanks largely to the lack of driving distances necessary to fuel enough of a demand to scale up production that would lower costs.

Demand for these vehicles has been as slow as a golf cart on a nearly depleted battery, so slow in fact that Energy Secretary Steven Chu indicated last week that the White House’s goal of 1 million electric vehicles on American roads by 2015 was “ambitious,” an indication that reality has set in on previously optimistic forecasts. Read more...

Lithium-manganese Batteries: Powering the Future?

The recent grounding of all 50 of Boeing’s (NYSE:BA) new 787 Dreamliner passenger jets has once again thrown the spotlight on lithium-ion batteries. One of the main reasons for the grounding was that a battery aboard a Dreamliner operated by All Nippon Airways overheated, forcing the plane to make an emergency landing in Japan. Read more...