It might be worthwhile looking at the chart for rechargeable battery technology and comparing the Edison technology for his EV (i.e. using NiFe) and the Nissan Leaf (100 years on in battery technology) compared the the Lithium Titanate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechargeable_battery

The differences are not all that striking.

For example energy density per kg (Wh/kg) only sees 80% improvement.

NiFe - 50 Wh/Kg
Li titanate - 90Wh/kg

When you take into the account the cost and lifetime factors between the 2 battery technologies then Edison's 110 year old NiFe technology actually has some marginal benefits especially when you realise that the mass of the vehicle occupants over the same time has probably increased by the same 80%



This technology certainly has some promising technological advantages i.e it improves on the charge time for the vehicle but once again it is only a electron storage device and the quicker you charge the vehicle the fatter the copper pipe has to be to transfer the charge energy.

i.e. If Ultra capacitors are used with the same capacity as the Nissan Leaf (24kWhrs) and can be charged in the space of say 2 minutes (the same as filling up a normal vehicle tank with petrol) then you are going to need a charging station/cable which has to handle around 1 MegaWatt of electrical power, which at say 200V needs a cable which can handle 5000 Amps. There are going to be some long queues at those charging stations. And the electronics within the vehicle to handle the 5000 Amp charge will end up weighing more than the charge storage device itself.

The Edison Car 1912

The 2010 Nissan Leaf