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One of the increases in outputs that I've heard of is by creating more surface area on the plates of the battery and this seems to be what they have done with the metal foam, but when I got prices of metal foam a few years back it was very expensive and lithium batteries tend to have each pouch be about the thickness of a sheet of paper, so I'm not sure how they are going to make the foam and keep it thin, but it's a nice idea.
As for lithium being no better then lead acid... yeah right! my car sees a reduction in range and speed starting at 50F and at 10F I have less then half of my batteries capacity.
The lithium batteries I just bought weigh 28 pounds for a ~12v 100amp hour pack/set of 4 cells, that pack would replace two golf cart batteries that weigh 67 pounds each or 134 pounds for a 12v pair they are rated at 220amp hours at a 20 hour discharge rate, but those batteries are only rated at 185amp hours at a 5 hour rate and around 140 amp hours over the course of two hours and often in an EV you have about an hours worth of driving at best on a set of lead acid batteries, so they don't give a one hour rating but most people figure it to be about 100amp hours on a 220amp hour battery and that capacity is to 100% discharged, at that point you have killed your battery, discharge it to 80% if you plan to replace them every 3 years, discharge them to 50% if you plan to replace them every 5-6 years, so while draining it only to 80% you have about 80 to 100 amp hours of capacity at best from a 134 pound pair of lead acid batteries that can be replaced with a 28 pound set of lithium batteries... so what was being said about their not being a weight savings?
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