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Lithium Air Battery?

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AFAIK:
Very high volumetric energy-density
High to medium(?) gravimetric energy-density (works by oxidation, so gets heavier as the metal oxidizes)
Low power density
Low efficiency (generates a lot of heat in use)
Low cost of manufacture.
Short life.
Easy recycling

Seems like it has good potential for use as an occasional-use range extender.

Tesla has a patent on the idea of a hybrid li-ion/metal-air battery, although it's a pretty obvious idea so could just be to save time fending off patent trolls.
 
Such technology could transform regular electric vehicles, as well as plug-in hybrids and range-extended electric cars.
The typical plug-in hybrid goes 10-20 miles on its smaller battery, but this could leap to 30-60 miles should VW's lithium-air chemistry prove viable.
Full battery-electric vehicles would comfortably leap to 200-300 miles, maybe more if energy efficiency is towards the top end of VW's estimates. Alternatively, smaller, lighter battery packs could be used to match the range of current electric vehicles--beneficial in city cars, for example.
 
this technology has major inherent drawbacks (as well as promises). currently the degradation of battery components by superoxide radicals formed during charging hinders progress in the field. IBM was a leader in Li-air research but they recently announced they will "diversify" to Na-air. Other relevant companies researching this are Liox and Polyplus. Also, JCESR (a govt initiative...) prefers Li/S and flow batteries over Li-air. basically until this problem with radicals being formed in the electrolyte is solved there is no commercialization on the horizon. This is not a trivial task. To put this in perspective, radicals are also the culprits for aging and cancer.
 
Does anyone know how viable this technology might be?
Volkswagen To Triple Battery Capacity With Lithium-Air Technology?
I worked with ex-lithium-air battery scientists. It's a holy grail of battery technology - theoretical density of Li-Air batteries is about the same as that of gasoline. So a Tesla-sized Li-Air battery could feasibly have several thousands miles of range.

There's just one catch - nobody can make a reliable Li-Air battery. There are many way too many hurdles.
 
This paper brings significant knowledge to the li-air field. The end product of discharge is not li2o2 but lioh. Which means the radicals which were previously eating the electrolyte are now reacting with water in a stable manner. Grey's group shows 2000 cycles with a capacity of 1000 mah/g and a discharge voltage of 2.7V. The hysteresis to charge also decreased to 200mV or so. This is basically at the level lithium sulfur batteries were a few years back. The only problem is (well disguised in the paper) the capacities per cm2 are very low, about 0.5mah/cm2 from my calculations based on the numbers given in the paper.