What Goes Into Making EV Batteries? And How Does Howard Hughes Tie Into It?

In a two-part series, Robert Austin writes about the challenges in front of carmakers as they accelerate the shift to electric vehicles. In the second part, he addresses how the engineer/aviator/filmmaker may have been the pioneer in the field.

, and Robert Austin

July 24, 2021 . 9:25 AM

5 min read

I grant you the answer is not obvious, but it will be interesting. The world has known how to make electric cars for well over a century now. But early electric cars lost the race to their internal combustion engine cousins mainly due to the convenience and speed of refueling and the greater energy density of gasoline over lead/acid batteries.

One gallon of gasoline, weighing about 6 pounds, held about the same amount of energy as 600 pounds of lead/acid batteries. Game over.