You're right that nearly anything could improve upon the status quo, but batteries are frankly a crappy technology and this seems to use batteries intensively f

You're right that nearly anything could improve upon the status quo, but batteries are frankly a crappy technology and this seems to use batteries intensively for not a lot of benefit. If you can make your peace with short range, why not use a hydrogen fuel cell? Sure, hydrogen often comes from natural gas but electricity often comes from coal/natural gas (in the U.S) and it seems like they make better catalysts for cracking hydrogen from water all the time - increased hydrogen gas demand could motivate people to commercialize the technology. Hydrogen doesn't have an appreciably higher energy density but it's much less cobalt intensive.