I don't know how much the author of this article drives, but 1800km range would mean that I would have to swap the battery every month. And I imagine that the range depends heavily on how you drive, so I would like to see real-world usage test.
The battery's aluminum replacement is also a "quick operation" that will be performed at periodic maintenance checks at a local service station on average once a year according to mileage driven, the spokesperson added"[1]
[1] http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9248966/Electric_car_...
Agreed, for commuters this wouldn't be a good answer to the "range anxiety" question.
I'd definitely be curious in general to see what the total environmental impact of 1,000 miles of range produced with a gas motor is compared to the 1,000 miles of range with this battery. As in, from mining to fuel exhaustion.
From the ComputerWorld article:
> "The recharge of the aluminum-air [battery] is user-friendly and consists of refilling water and replacing aluminum when depleted," a spokesperson for Alcoa said in an email response to Computerworld. "The water refill is an easy task that can be performed by using tap water on average every one or two months according to mileage driven." The battery's aluminum replacement is also a "quick operation" that will be performed at periodic maintenance checks at a local service station on average once a year according to mileage driven, the spokesperson added.
Edit: This is discussed in the previous thread, abalone posted a link to it.
And note that there's a classical Li-Ion battery, so the usage scenario seems to be mostly urban users with short commutes (on the Li-Ion, possibly slightly longer on the metal-air battery) with the occasional long trip eating into the metal-air battery.