The future of Batteries on CNN

There was a great article in Fine Homebuilding having to do with Cordless Drills etc. Most all of which use NiMH battery system. It directly addressed the issue of battery charging cycles and how they effect battery life. Bottom line is that they concur with Dave's posting above. Deep discharging can and will lead to reversal of polarity in some cells, which over the long haul deminishes battery capacity and life.

In other words, the Pop Sci "expert" was just reiterating an urban myth.

 

Re: Hydrogen Fuel Cells for laptops and cell phones:

Scientific American, in their article about the effectiveness of hydrogen as a fuel for automobiles, said that the perfect fit for hydrogen fuel cells is small electric devices, like cell phones and laptops.

(Though I wonder: does that mean there's a tiny exhaust pipe or stack on your cell phone? Giving off occasional drops of water, and the smell of clean laundry? )

 

I have found this to be an excellent article about rechargable batteries:

Batteries In A Portable World

It says that modern nickel-based batteries are not very prone to crystalization and that NiMH batteries are less prone than NiCd. I would not say that the "memory effect" is a myth, but I think the once per month deep discharge routine is outdated since it mostly applies to older NiCd batteries.

I also have to believe that the Toyota engineers are aware of all this and have designed the Prius to handle the NiMH battery appropriately.