Wonderful news! Toshiba's SCiB technology is streets ahead.
For anyone in a clod climate this battery has excellent performance down to -30C, and if you usually do not fast charge you should get 12,000 cycles out of the battery.
Toshiba rte it as having a 20 year life in an EV - more than the car.

driving98,
Perhaps you can do much better than Mitsubishi, but personally I think they have done a fine job in bringing the first purpose built electric car by a big manufacturer to the point where they are actually for sale now.
I have no idea of what you base your remarks on energy density on, but the Toshiba batteries now reach a respectable 100wh/kg, and are well in train to develop 150wh/kg:
http://e2af.com/interview/091009.shtml

As it says in this interview, the very high SOC of the chemistry with perhaps 95% of nominal capacity usable as against around 50-80% for most other chemistries also increases the effective usable energy content per kg.

The only problem with this battery seems to be very LOW energy density. However, it could be an excellent candidate for heavy vehicles (buses, trucks, locomotives, boats etc) where excess size and weight is a lesser problem.

Davemart the high power battery is only 51 wh/kg The other batteries are much lower charge discharge rate.

wintermane:
Please provide the sources for your claim that the high power battery only provides 51 wh/kg, as this flatly contradicts the linked sources to the manufacturer that I have given.
Perhaps you are thinking of the 4.2ah battery, thge 20ah one is the one that is in question.

Harvey D
On what grounds do you expect other chemistries to further double their density to 400/600 Wh/kg?
AFAIK you start running into physical limits before then, and you need to switch to LiS or Li-O2 to get there.
150wh/kg should be enough for Toshiba to do a 200 mile nominal range car, given the very good SOC.

SJC:
'Now in production are high energy density 4.2 Ah cells. Additionally, Toshiba is aggressively pursuing a product roadmap focused on further increasing SCiB™ capacity, energy density, and power density. 20 Ah cells with the same characteristics will be available in 2011.'

http://www.toshiba.com/ind/data/tag_files/SCiB_Brochure_5383.pdf

this is the battery for EV use - the one you are looking at is for electric bikes etc.

Harvey D,
It seems tough here to get folks either to read links or reference their comments!
I accepted that the Panasonic battery has a higher density, but queried your claim that they could as readily double that again as Toshiba can catch up:
'On what grounds do you expect other chemistries to further double their density to 400/600 Wh/kg?
AFAIK you start running into physical limits before then, and you need to switch to LiS or Li-O2 to get there.'

So you have sources or back-ups of any sort for your claim?
I have referenced Toshiba's achieved 100wh/kg ready for production, with 150wh/kg as their next target.

Davemart here is the important bit you missed...

http://e2af.com/interview/images/091009/img_06.jpg

Notice how the 3900 w/kg battery and the 100 wh/kg battery are two VERY different batteries?


Notice how the future 150 wh/kg battery is vastly lower power density then the 20 ah model?

Also note the 7000 cycle lifespan was only on the high power battery they never talk about the lifespan of the high energy models.

Market leader A123's 20Ah (prismatic nLFP) cell is 50% greater than that of the old 26650 cylindrical cell or about 164Wh/kg.

All this competition in battery chemistry is excellent for growing jobs and returning manufacturing to domestic sources. One of the best effects of electrification of transport will be de-centralization of manufacturing away from low-cost regions. And patent infringement issues will make low-cost products less attractive and far more expensive in the long term.

The different lithium chemistries have trade offs. Some charge and discharge quickly, some have great capacity for their weight and size. It is the goal of the market to find the right battery for the application. Saying that one is "better" than another is meaningless until we all define what better is.

I find it is difficult to nail down the theoretical limits of different battery chemistries, but the none-too informative links I found seemed to indicate that there may be some sort of energy density barrier for lithium titanate at around 175wh/kg.
Other chemistries are around 300wh/kg, although the idea that they can be pushed much further to, say, 600wh/kg seems fanciful - you need totally different chemistries like LiS to do that.

I should also make it clear that 150 Wh/kg is a target for Toshiba, not an achievement.

So at the moment a performance which compares to that of the Leaf is on the cards, especially in view of the very good SOC.
You get the additional benefit of very long life, super fast charge capability etc.
This sounds good for many commercial vehicles, but unless Toshiba can greatly increase energy density the 300wh/kg of other chemistries seem likely to win out for personal vehicles, particularly since the auto makers may be less than enthralled by the prospect of putting a battery in cars which lasts more or less forever.
Personally, a Leaf like car which can do 100-150 miles and where you don't have to change the battery before the car falls apart would appeal, but it is perhaps doubtful if we will get it.

I think what is missing here is a true apples to apples comparison. We should really be talking "usable energy density".

It's more impressive to say a certain battery chemistry has 300Wh/kg than it is to realize it can only have 150Wh/kg of "USABLE" energy if it can only cycle between 90% and 50% SOC without damaging the battery.

I'm as guilty as everyone else, but you have to admit that we have a habit of only looking at the raw numbers that everyone publishes to promote their latest battery...without asking the hard questions:
1) What range can it support without shortening battery life (ie can it only go to 40% and back up to 90% with no damage on a regular basis)
2) How many kWh can does it supply between that low end and high end SOC (which is the actual usable portion)
3) How many cycles can it do in that SOC range
4) What is it's cost per kWh
5) How quickly can it handle rapid recharge with no damage

Truthfully, there is also the rest of a matrix that should be filled out if you want to compare:
6) What is the kW/kg (power)
7) What is the shelf life
8) What is the operating temperature range

Those numbers are all related and we shouldn't be comparing them to each other across batteries, one number at a time, because they are meaningless without a context. And even which ones are important changes with an EV vs. HEV

Worse still many batteries only count the PEAK power output not the constant. Back a few months someone was talking about using a battery for evs and I pointed out.. the battery only managed 2 amps constant discharge rate.... That ment the entioe pack they had envisioned had as much power as a weed wacker....