Questions arise as to how much supercapacitors can improve if organisations more like NASA took over. After all, if supercapacitors can replace many batteries when, as today, they store one tenth of their energy, what will happen in the marketplace if they approach the theoretical ten times the lithium-ion battery figure while acting as a near-perfect "battery"?

All electric vehicles have at least one traction motor, so the market for electric vehicle traction motors is one of the largest markets for electric vehicle parts and a primary determinant of the performance and affordability of a given vehicle. Indeed, IDTechEx Research finds that in 2013 44.6 million electric motors will be needed for vehicles, rising to 147.7 million in 2023.