Toshiba announced a new varient of LiIon (lithium) battery this week, which sounds promising, but also has some puzzling aspects.
The company claims the battery can be recharged in one minute to 80% of its capacity. Sounds great for people using laptop computers (recharge quickly in an airport), cell phones, and digital cameras.
Bad news. Toshiba says it is first aiming the new battery for the electric car market.
And more bad news. Readers on slash.dot analysed the electrical requirements to charge the battery in 1 minute. The equation is simple: power in = power out (where power = volts * amps). And the numbers don't look good: hundreds of amps are needed for the one-minute recharge.
Perhaps Toshiba meant to say that the battery could withstand being recharged in 1 minute; in real life, the recharging time may not be any better than the 15-minute Ray-o-Vac charger I have for the NiMH batteries my camera uses.
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