Current trends in the automotive market can often be seen through concept cars that manufactures display at auto shows. Many new concepts incorporate not just future styling cues, but also give clues as to future technologies that will begin showing up in road cars. Recent trends suggest that we will see an increasing amount of hybrid gasoline or diesel electric vehicles. While there are a multitude of propulsion system designs (the most popular being either direct electric drive with a range extender, or a mixture of combusition and electric drive powering the vehicle), one item remains ever present: the battery. Most vehicle manufactures utilize a lithium-ion battery to store reserve energy. While these batteries are good they do limit the vehicles performance by adding weight and limiting overall range. I have posted an article that outlines some current research avenues into how to improve battery life and reduce the cost of batteries.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7179/full/451652a.html
