Dieselgate - Transition to ElectricVehicles, page-162

Very decent research. Personally I'm a fan of lithium air batteries. Still in their infancy and the science has a long way to go - have read some academics say we're at least a decade or two away from making this battery work as an EV solution.

But agree with your point that too much effort and money has already gone into making lithium ion safe and money will be spent continuing to make these batteries safer.

So next decade or two - for EVs i see Li Ion and and LTO as the dominant batteries, followed by an 'air' technology thereafter. Could be lithium or something else like potassium or even sulfur - but the 'air' battery has to be a very plausible and probable 'end game'.

For example. A lithium air battery EV 'theoretically' is capable of similar kilowatt hours an ICE engine is capable of. In terms of 'technology', the science geeks have also proven that you could substitute lithium into the design of a potassium air battery and still work - albeit lithium not as great a performer as potassium in the design.

But then you see the academic geeks learning new things daily. For example the research into zinc air technologies has rewritten all the textbooks over the last 2 or 3 years.

http://www.rdmag.com/news/2015/04/r...free-catalyst-rechargeable-zinc-air-batteries

So maybe thats the problem currently with the perception that lithium will be short lived - and some new fancy battery not thought of yet or invented yet will come along and end the lithium reign?

More textbooks need to be re written.