The Lithium-Ion Battery
Unchaining computation from the wall.
Explore this event on the interactive timeline →Sony and Asahi Kasei released the first commercial lithium-ion battery. This chemistry provided a massive leap in energy density and rechargeability without the "memory effect" of older nickel-cadmium batteries.
Verified Facts
- The invention of the lithium-ion battery directly enabled the modern mobile era. Without it, laptops, smartphones, and electric vehicles would be physically impossible due to weight constraints.
- In 1991, early Li-ion cells cost an astronomical $9,200 per kilowatt-hour (kWh).
- The inventors of the lithium-ion battery (Goodenough, Whittingham, and Yoshino) were jointly awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.