Straits Times

Battery breakthrough promises phone, car revolution

Think of an electric car that can accelerate swiftly to cruising speed, laptop computers that can recharge in a couple of minutes rather than hours and a generation of super-miniature mobile phones.

That's the vision sketched on Wednesday by a pair of scientists in the United States, unveiling an invention that they say could lead to a smaller, lighter and more power-packed lithium battery than anything available today.

Japan'S Mitsubishi Motors on Monday said it had reached a basic accord with France's PSA Peugeot Citroen to jointly build electric cars for the European market.

Under the memorandum of understanding, the companies will develop a new car based on Mitsubishi's i MiEV electric vehicle, Mitsubishi said in a statement.

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Firms devoted to clean energy and other 'green tech' promise to revive a Silicon Valley economy sagging beneath a global financial meltdown and the US mortgage disaster, a report said Tuesday.

Home foreclosures, economic instability, and year-end job losses have cast a pall over the northern California computer technology region that is home to firms such as Intel, Apple, Google, Facebook, and Yahoo!

TOKYO'S local government, seeking to fight global warming, said on Thursday it planned to exempt taxes on next-generation green vehicles such as electric cars and plug-in hybrids once they hit the market.

Japanese automakers are aiming to put out electric cars - which emit no carbon blamed for global warming - as early as this year despite the global slowdown that has battered the auto industry.

Some automakers are also working on plug-in hybrid cars powered by petrol and electricity and are rechargeable at a power outlet at home, letting motorists drive longer distances.

The world's first cargo ship partly propelled by solar power took to the seas on Friday in Japan, aiming to cut fuel costs and carbon emissions when automakers ship off their exports.

Auriga Leader, a freighter developed by shipping line Nippon Yusen K.K. and oil distributor Nippon Oil Corp, took off from a shipyard in the western city of Kobe, officials of the two firms said.

The huge freighter capable of carrying 6,400 automobiles is equipped with 328 solar panels at a cost of 150 million yen (S$2.4 million dollars), the officials said.