(Yomiuri: November 2, 2015 – p. 7)

 The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) plans to strengthen the development of a storage battery for electric vehicles (EVs). The ministry will begin in earnest its development of a storage battery to replace the lithium battery for EVs in 2016, aiming at achieving the practical use of a storage battery in 2030. Even though the size of a battery is the same, the ministry’s goal is to make an electric vehicle that can travel 500 kilometers – the distance between Tokyo and Osaka – on a single storage battery without recharging.

 METI plans to make an EV that can travel 350 kilometers – the distance between Tokyo and Nagoya – without recharging by improving the lithium battery by 2020.

 METI aims to develop a storage battery with new materials that can store 500 watts per hour by 2030. The ministry has allocated 3.2 billion yen to cover the cost of experiments and research in its budgetary request for fiscal 2016. (Slightly abridged)