By Ashley Miznazi, Miami Herald

They call it range anxiety, the fear that an electric vehicle could run out of juice, say somewhere south of Yeehaw Junction on the way to Disney World with three cranky kids aboard.

Such scenarios are one of the big hesitations for many people pondering the purchase of an EV.

Research going on at Florida International University could go a long way toward curing that concern. The work is focused on a new type of battery, made of lithium-sulfur, that could potentially triple an EV’s range and also be cheaper, lighter and better for the environment.

But lithium-sulfur batteries have long had fatal flaws: they don’t recharge well and lose their juice after a year or two of use. Now, Professor Bilal El-Zahab, who runs FIU’s state-of-the-art battery lab, and a team of researchers have developed a promising breakthrough in battery composition detailed in a recent science journal paper.

“We’ve been working on this solution for at least ten years,” El-Zahab said “This battery will definitely last for more time than a typical battery.”

Dr. Bilal El-Zahab poses during a tour of the Battery Research Laboratory on Thursday, March 20, 2025, at the FIU Engineering Center in Miami. Dr. El-Zahab’s laboratory has created a Lithium-sulfur battery that could replace Lithium-ion rechargeable batteries. (Alie Skowronski/Miami Herald/TNS)

While still likely years from commercial development, he estimated that FIU’s change in battery chemistry could take an EV range from 300 miles to about 1000. That would certainly all but eliminate range anxiety on long trips and potentially transform the multibillion-dollar EV battery industry. For many everyday commuters, for instance, such improved performance could be the difference in charging every other week or every several weeks, instead of weekly, El-Zahab said.

Without trying to explain the complicated chemistry that makes batteries work, FIU’s team found that adding a metal catalyst, platinum, made lithium-sulfur last for more charging cycles. El-Zahab said to think about power flowing through battery pathways like a five-lane highway that suddenly slows to one open lane.

“So likelihood of accidents, likelihoods of losses, likelihood of anything wrong to happen, increases,” he said. “So what does platinum do? It acts like a traffic officer. It just goes in and guides people where to go and helps open up more lanes,” El-Zahab said.

Dr. Bilal El-Zahab holds a Lithium-Sulfur battery during a tour of the Battery Research Laboratory on Thursday, March 20, 2025, at the FIU Engineering Center in Miami. Dr. El-Zahab’s laboratory has created a Lithium-sulfur battery that could replace Lithium-ion rechargeable batteries. (Alie Skowronski/Miami Herald/TNS)

The work was conducted in FIU’s battery lab — filled with flashing chargers, humming fans, pumps cycling the air, temperature controllers and other gear — has everything needed to make batteries from scratch. The researchers use large, black neoprene gloves that look something out of a sci-fi movie to work in oxygen and humidity-free chambers to assemble the batteries. They start by making a small battery, about the size of an AirTag, and scale their experimental versions from there.

Weighs and costs less

Since the early 90’s the battery of choice to power everything from our phones to satellites to EVs has been lithium-ion. But lithium-ion, El-Zahab said, is at “theoretical capacity” which means they can only produce so much energy — at least not without substantially raising the price.

El-Zahab says there are numerous other advantages to lithium-sulfur.

Dr. Bilal El-Zahab, left, supervises a demonstration of one of his PhD students, Saeme Motevalian, cutting a piece of sulfur at the Battery Research Laboratory on Thursday, March 20, 2025, at the FIU Engineering Center in Miami. (Alie Skowronski/Miami Herald/TNS)

Today, EV cars are expected to run at least 200,000 miles and a typical EV vehicle might need a replacement battery to make it to the cars grave. The lithium-sulfur battery would eliminate the need for a replacement battery, which creates less waste in the environment. While gas cars batteries are typically recycled, the massive packs EVs use need special dismantling and could explode if done wrong. That doesn’t necessary mean they’ll end up at the landfill, but many sit in storage awaiting a recycling date.

Lithium-sulfur also offers another option — a much smaller battery which would enhance the safety of the car and cost, El-Zahab said. The sulfur batteries in the FIU battery lab can be made two to three times lighter than the ion batteries, he said.

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Lithium-sulfur also costs much less to produce than lithium-ion. A typical lithium-ion battery is made for $100 per kilowatt hour, so a mid-range EV’s 75 kilowatt per hour battery would cost $7,500. Lithium-sulfur would cost $4,500 for a battery with the same capacity. The heavier lithium-ion batteries also wear down tires faster.

“The lithium-sulfur will make electric vehicles cheaper, and possibly will increase the adoption of these vehicles for people who cannot really nowadays afford the average electric vehicle cost,” El-Zahab said. “The battery is the single most expensive part or component in an electric vehicle today.”

Published studies including in IEEE and Science Direct suggest lithium-sulfur is the most environmentally and climate-friendly battery option. Sulfur is our 10th most abundant element and is already a byproduct of oil and gas processing.

“Regulations force us to remove the sulfur from natural gas, so we produce literally mountains of it,” El-Zahab said.

Some of those key materials used in the lithium-ion batteries — like nickel and cobalt — are not abundant, he said. And increasing competition for them will continue to drive up costs and extracting them comes at an environmental cost.

Business & Human Rights Resource Centre conducted a report that looked at how the biggest EV manufacturers — Including Toyota, Volvo, Tesla and Audi — sourced their batteries from Indonesia which led to deforestation and other issues.

“We are overburdening the mining industry in the supply chain by using so much. Based on existing battery technologies, if everyone wants a piece of the pie we won’t have enough — or the prices will be insane,” El-Zahab said.

PhD student, Saeme Motevalian, left, explains something about batteries to another student Georgina Jahan, right, at the Battery Research Laboratory on Thursday, March 20, 2025, at the FIU Engineering Center in Miami. (Alie Skowronski/Miami Herald/TNS)

FIU, of course, is far from the only player in the game looking for new ways to make the car charge faster and run longer. Researchers at Purdue University found using recycled plastic could advance sulfur’s battery life. Monash University researchers in Australia said they cracked the challenge too by using a different catalyst, “polyvinylpyrrolidone complex” (a chemical compound commonly used as an antiseptic) in their batteries.

Estimates of the market value of the EV battery industry range widely, from $40 to $80 billion and financial analysts expect that to double or more in coming decades. Global automakers are planning to spend more than half a trillion dollars on EVs and their batteries through 2030, according to a Reuters analysis. El-Zahab’s work is funded with $4 million from Canada-based Lion Battery Technologies, which plans to commercialize the technology over the next several years.

“We’re looking forward to take our technology and bring it to the world,” El-Zahab said. “It may be available by 2030, maybe a couple of years later than that would be more realistic. But eventually, I do believe lithium-sulfur is going to be a viable technology.”

Ashley Miznazi is a climate change reporter for the Miami Herald funded by the Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Family Foundation in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners.

©2025 Miami Herald. Visit miamiherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By SCOTT BAUER

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin’s attorney general on Sunday asked the liberal-controlled state Supreme Court to stop billionaire Elon Musk from handing over $1 million checks to two voters, an appeal that came hours before President Donald Trump’s ally planned the giveaway at an evening rally.

An appeals court on Saturday rejected the legal challenge by Democrat Josh Kaul, who argues that Musk’s offer violates a state law prohibiting giving anything of value in exchange for a vote.

Wisconsin’s tightly contested Supreme Court election, where ideological control of the court is at stake, is on Tuesday. Liberals currently hold a 4-3 majority.

At Musk’s rally scheduled in Green Bay at 7:30 p.m. EST, he promised to hand over a pair of $1 million checks to voters who signed an online petition against “activist” judges.

Trump and Musk are backing Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel in the Supreme Court race, while Democrats are behind Dane County Judge Susan Crawford. Trump and groups he supports have spent more than $20 million to help Schimel get elected.

Crawford’s campaign declined to comment Sunday on the appeal.

The justices who are being asked to decide the matter include the liberal incumbent whose retirement this year set up the race for an open seat and control of the court. The contest has shattered national spending records for a judicial election, with more than $81 million in spending.

Musk’s political action committee used a nearly identical tactic before the presidential election last year, offering to pay $1 million a day to voters in Wisconsin and six other battleground states who signed a petition supporting the First and Second Amendments. A judge in Pennsylvania said prosecutors failed to show the effort was an illegal lottery and allowed it to continue through Election Day.

The appeals court said Saturday that the attorney general, in a “minimally developed legal argument,” failed to show that he was entitled to an order blocking Musk. The court also noted that Kaul alleged that the Columbia County Circuit Court had refused to hear his lawsuit, but he provided no details about the court’s action.

There is no entry for the county court’s decision in the state’s online court database and neither Kaul’s office nor the state court office has provided any documentation to The Associated Press of the court’s actions which came after business hours on Friday night.

“We are not permitted to be the first court to decide whether the respondents are engaged in the conduct that is alleged, or to decide the legal status of that conduct,” the appeals court said.

Musk on Friday initially said in a post on his social media platform, X, that he planned to “personally hand over” $2 million to a pair of voters who have already cast their ballots in the race.

Musk later posted a clarification, saying the money would go to people who will be “spokesmen” for an online petition against “activist” judges. After first saying the event would only be open to people who had voted in the Supreme Court race, he said attendance would be limited to those who have signed the petition.

Also on Friday, Musk’s political action committee identified the recipient of its first $1 million giveaway — a Green Bay man who had donated to the Wisconsin GOP and the conservative candidate in the court race, and who has a history of posting support for Trump and his agenda.

The judicial election comes as Wisconsin’s highest court is expected to rule on abortion rights, congressional redistricting, union power and voting rules that could affect the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election in the state.

ALAFAIR BURKE: Author of psychological thrillers and police procedurals that draw on her professional background as a law professor and former deputy district attorney, and co-author with Mary Higgins Clark of the Under Suspicion series, introduces her new thriller “The Note.” Presented by Metropolitan Library Service Agency’s Club Book series. Free. 7 p.m. Monday, Prior Lake Library, 16210 Eagle Creek Ave, S.E., Prior Lake.

JAMES LENFESTEY: Presents his latest poetry collection “Time Remaining,” with Wang Ping. 7 p.m. Tuesday, Magers & Quinn, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S., Mpls.

ANDERS NILSON: Discusses his graphic novel “Tongues,” which brings the old gods to new life. With singer/artist Zak Sally. 7 p.m. Monday, Magers & Quinn, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S., Mpls. Registration required at magersandquinn.com.

MAGGIE SMITH: Introduces “Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life,” in conversation with Jeannine Ouellette. Ticketed event, presented by Magers & Quinn. 5 p.m. Saturday, Open Book, 1011 Washington Ave. S., Mpls. Go to magersandquinn.com.

STORYFEST: Event for all ages focuses on storytelling as art and entertainment, including storytelling performances, workshops, community showcases, resource and merchandise tables and open mics. The program includes a youth and storytelling concert, sharing storytelling skills, a workshop on the purposes and techniques of the art, and storytelling performances for adults and families. Free. 10 a.m. Saturday, Bloomington Center for the Arts, 1800 W. Old Shakopee Road, Bloomington. Find the full program at storyartsmn.org.

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There is a lot of talk in Beijing this week over when President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping of China will meet face to face. Some Chinese experts say the two leaders need to wait a few months until Trump decides exactly what tariffs he is going to impose on China — and sees what China will do in response.

Can I just butt in and say: “Excuse me, Mr. Presidents, but you two need to get together, like, tomorrow. But it’s not to discuss the golden oldies — tariffs, trade and Taiwan.

“There is an earthshaking event coming — the birth of artificial general intelligence. The United States and China are the two superpowers closing in on AGI — systems that will be as smart or smarter than the smartest human and able to learn and act on their own. Whatever you both may think you’ll be judged on by history, I assure you that whether you collaborate to create a global architecture of trust and governance over these emerging superintelligent computers, so humanity gets the best out of them and cushions their worst, will be at the top.”

I realize many will consider this wasted breath with all the turmoil unleashed by the new administration in Washington, but that will not deter me from making the point as loudly as I can. Because what Soviet-American nuclear arms control was to world stability since the 1970s, U.S.-Chinese AI collaboration to make sure we effectively control these rapidly advancing AI systems will be for the stability of tomorrow’s world.

AI systems and humanoid robots offer so much potential benefit to humanity, but they could be hugely destructive and destabilizing if not embedded with the right values and controls. In addition, this new age must be defined by a lot of planning about what humans will do for work, and how to preserve the dignity they derive from work, when machines will be able to do so many things better than people. Millions of people possibly losing their jobs and dignity at the same time is a prescription for disorder.

A veteran Chinese economist made clear to me that China is very alive to these risks: “Today, a lot of Chinese cannot find jobs. With AI they will not be able to find jobs — forever. What happens if they cannot find appropriate jobs” because “70% of civil servants are robots? That will be super risky.”

There is no time to lose in thinking about how we adapt, and yet we can be so nearsighted when it comes to the signs and the warnings. A decade from now, what will journalists say was the most important news story in the fall of 2024 that should have received more attention, given the long-term consequences?

Will they say it was the second election of Donald Trump as president in November 2024? Or will they say it was Uber’s decision in September 2024 to go beyond its pilot project in Phoenix and start offering driverless, all-electric Waymo cars on its ride-hailing app in Austin and Atlanta — replacing human Uber drivers.

At this point I’d vote for Uber going driverless.

Will they say it was Trump’s election in November? Or will they say it was the December 2024 battle in a snowy forest near Kharkiv, Ukraine, reported by The Wall Street Journal, in which Ukrainian forces attacked a Russian bunker with four-wheeled robot drones — some mounted with machine guns or packed with explosives and backed by aerial drones from above — in a “coordinated unmanned” land and air assault “on a scale that hadn’t previously been done, marking a new chapter of warfare where humans are largely removed from the front line of the battlefield, at least in the opening stages.”

I’ll go with all-robot-no-humans Ukrainian air and land assault.

How about one more — something on my mind, since I am attending a conference in China: Will they say it was Trump’s November 2024 election, or will they say it was the fact that China’s televised Lunar New Year gala this year, watched by more than 1 billion people, featured “16 humanoid robots” taking the stage. “Clad in vibrant floral print jackets, they took part in a signature … dance, twirling red handkerchiefs in unison with human dancers,” MIT Technology Review reported. In their day job, these robots work assembling electric vehicles. Dancing was just their hobby.

I can see a case for humanoid robot dancers.

All three examples reflect the now growing consensus, as New York Times technology writer Kevin Roose recently observed, that full-on AGI is coming faster than most anyone thought — “very soon — probably in 2026 or 2027 but possibly as soon as this year.”

AGI is the holy grail of AI — single systems that can master math, physics, biology, chemistry, material science, Shakespeare, poetry and literature as well as the smartest humans but that can also reason across all of them and see connections no human polymath ever could.

As Craig Mundie, a former chief research and strategy officer for Microsoft, put it to me: Probably before the end of Trump’s presidency, we will have not just birthed a new computer tool; “we will have birthed a new species — the superintelligent machine.”

“Our species is carbon-based. This new one is silicon-based,” Mundie explained. “Therefore, we need to immediately begin to chart a path to coexist with this new superintelligent species and ultimately coevolve with it.”

We humans have lived alongside a lot of other species on this planet for a long time, “but we were always smarter than all of them,” he added. “Soon there is going to be a new one that will be smarter than we are and steadily getting smarter. We are expanding what is the highest level of intelligence on the planet — from what humans could imagine and program into computers to what computers can begin to learn themselves, which is virtually boundless.”

The advances that China has made on AI in just the past year have made it absolutely clear that Beijing and Washington are now the world’s two AI superpowers.

And if you thought otherwise, China’s premier, Li Qiang, opened the China Development Forum, the event that drew me to Beijing, by proudly noting how China’s recently unveiled DeepSeek AI system “burst onto the scene,” highlighting “the huge power of innovation and creativity of the Chinese people.”

On top of that, he added, “2025 could be the year of mass production of humanoid robots in China.” A recent report by Morgan Stanley described China’s dominance over the West in the humanoid robot industry, controlling a majority of the top-listed companies. These are AI-infused robots that move and speak remarkably like humans.

Before these AGI systems take hold and scale up, we need the two superpowers to get serious about devising a regulatory and technological framework that ensures an agreement for imbuing these systems with some kind of moral reasoning and embedded usage controls so they are prevented from being used by rogue actors for globally destabilizing activities or going rogue themselves. We need a system of governance that ensures that AI systems always operate and police themselves in alignment with both human and machine well-being.

There was a time when many people thought that such a project was something only a coalition of democracies could do — and then present it to the world. Sorry, too late. China has greatly narrowed the gap with us and surpassed the other democracies. This can’t be done without Beijing. So guess who’s coming to dinner. It’s a table for two now. Trump, Xi, please step this way. History has its eyes on you both.

Alas, though, generating the conditions to allow for Beijing and Washington to collaborate on a uniform system for AI trust and governance will be no easy matter for the leaders of China and America.

Nevertheless, listening to Chinese experts and officials at this conference, I sense that the Chinese are a lot like Americans: still trying to get their minds around what new capabilities these new AI systems will offer. They are torn between wanting to do everything to make sure their companies win the AI race against American ones — so they can dominate the market — and wanting to make sure these technologies don’t destabilize their own country.

I am hardly naive about the level of mistrust in U.S.-China relations today. Having spent the last week in both capitals, I can attest it is off the charts. So I am fully aware of how absurd it can sound calling on the two of them to trust each other to collaborate on a system of moral reasoning to ensure we get the best and cushion the worst of AI.

But our leaders should take a lesson from how software technology companies used “coopetition” (cooperation between competitors). Apple, Microsoft, Google and Meta all wanted to destroy one another in business, but they eventually realized that if they cooperated on some basic standards, rather then each going its own way, they could massively expand the markets for their otherwise independent products and services.

Once AGI arrives, if we are not assured that these systems will be embedded with common trust standards, the United States and China will not be able to do anything together. Neither side will trust anything it exports or imports to the other, because AI will be in everything that is digital and connected. That is your car, your watch, your toaster, your favorite chair, your implant, your notepad. So if there is no trust between us and China and each of us has our own AI systems, it will be the TikTok problem on steroids. A lot of trade will just grind to a halt. We’ll just be able to sell each other soybeans for soy sauce. It will be a world of high-tech feudalism.

I was taken with how Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari, who addressed a packed audience of mostly Chinese people at the forum’s session on AI, put it.

“We should build more trust between humans before we develop truly superintelligent AI agents,” Harari said. “But we are now doing exactly the opposite. All over the world, trust between humans is collapsing. Too many countries think that to be strong is to trust no one and be completely separated from others. If we forget our shared human legacies and lose trust with everyone outside us, that will leave us easy prey for an out-of-control AI.”

Together humans can control AI, he added, “but if we fight one another, AI will control us.”

In this specific endeavor of creating trusted AI, I don’t hesitate to say I wish Xi and Trump much success — and fast.

Thomas Friedman writes a column for the New York Times.

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