By Evan Ackerman Lithium ion batteries are way, way better than nickle metal hydride batteries or (shudder) nickle cadmium batteries. But still, batteries are batteries, and they have a way of going from cool to sucks in a matter of only a few hundred charging cycles, whatever their supposed lifetimes are purported to be. The six cell battery on my netbook, which incidentally cost about a third as much as the entire computer, was advertised as being able to last six hours, lasted four brand new, and is now (a year later) down to three on a good day. By doing something clever involving keeping tin particles bonded together, a Japanese company called Eamex is saying that they’ve been able to develop a battery that can be charged

and discharged some 10,000 times, which means that they should last about 20 years if you recharge them about 1.3 times a day. Also, they’re talking about having a battery with a power density of 10,000 W/kg by the end of the year. Most of this stuff is probably headed for electric cars and such, at least initially… Guess it’s time to go buy one of those , then. Oh, and I spent 20 minutes looking for an interesting picture of a lithium ion battery. I couldn’t find one, so instead here’s a picture of a bunny with a pancake on his head . [ Eamex ] VIA [ CrunchGear ]

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New Lithium Ion Batteries Increase Lifespan To 20 Years