Barack Obama, the Science President, is staking the future of America, and especially that of our government car company GM, on the Volt electric car, which uses lithium ion batteries, that can be recharged by a small electric motor if the battery gets low.
A commenter on a news story pointed out that the lithium battery pack will have a life of only 1,000 duty cycles before it must be replaced, which the person believes will cost about $15,000. If you use your Volt to go to work and back every day and nothing else (2 cycles/day x 5 days/week X 50 weeks), at the end of 2 years, your batteries will be useless. They will start to lose range long before they die completely, which means the 40 mpg gasoline engine kicks in, defeating the entire purpose of the electric car.
But 1000 is probably way too optimistic.
http://batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm
But lets say that is accurate. Instead of your 40 mile commute costing $1 in electricity, the cost of using up the batteries adds another $15.00, or in the ballpark of comparison to gasoline an additional $10 per gallon.
GM claims to have “magic” proprietary computer software that will allow the batteries to last 10 years:
http://gm-volt.com/2009/01/23/gm-qa-with-bob-kruse-on-the-chevy-volts-batteries/
(How did they determine that in less than 10 years?)
President Obama makes a big deal that he’s the “Smart” president. Answer that one, smart guy.
If you get past that issue, Lithium ion batteries are dependent on lithium that is only commercially viable in one mine in the world, lose their ability to deliver current if they get too hot, and are a significant fire and explosion hazard. There is also currently no technology to recycle lithium ion batteries.