Energy · 1859

Lead-acid battery

Planté's lead plates in acid make the first rechargeable battery.

Gaston Planté invented the lead-acid cell in 1859 and Camille Faure's pasted plates made it practical in 1881. It became the car starter battery and early grid storage, and remains the cheapest rechargeable chemistry per watt of surge.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 1

Voltaic battery 1800

What it led to 1

La Jamais Contente 1899

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Cost of memory and storage Latest: Memory: 1.09k $/TB (2023) Source: Our World in Data