ArsTechnica has a great article on how scientists at Toyota are working on improving the batteries that power most of the electronics we use every day. Here's a fun snippet from the article:
“One of them is a crystal with the rather complex formula of Li9.54Si1.74P1.44S11.7Cl0.3. This turned out to be very effective for high current applications. Another material, Li9.6P3S12, was better for high-voltage cells. Both of them were chemically stable, and neither involved any expensive raw materials. The authors determined their structure, which revealed that the new materials provided a three-dimensional grid, allowing ions to move in nearly any direction.”