1. TRANSPORTATION:
A global race for the plug-in hybrid battery hits the back stretch

GLENDALE, Wis. -- The ingredients for a multibillion-dollar global technology race sit on a table in this Milwaukee suburb: two strips of specially coated foil and a plastic-like material called a separator. Put these ingredients together properly, and you have what the world's automobile manufacturers are desperate to acquire: the lithium-ion battery. Able to store about 100 times the energy in conventional car batteries, the lithium-ion car battery may sound simple and attractive, but its course of development has been anything but. With several months left in the race to bring it into commercial production, the most likely winners are in Japan and other nations in the Far East, but that's not certain yet. Go to story #1