BERKELEY, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- Anyone who has followed batteries knows the likelihood of a new technology to come along and save the world from itself is close to nil. All we can hope for are tweaks that incrementally improve battery performance.

But there is a tweak that interests me, and it should interest investors as well. It's a lithium-titanate battery developed by Altair Nanotechnologies ALTI, and it's now being experimented with by the U.K.'s Lightning car company, as well as at least one U.S. carmaker.

What makes this battery valuable for automotive use is its recharging speed. It's optimized to recharge in minutes, not hours. That makes the idea of fueling stations for electric vehicles feasible, perhaps even practical.

It also can be recharged more than 5,000 times, or every day for more than a decade. Indeed, the recharging potential of these batteries could outlast a car's lifetime, and so the company needs to figure out ways to recycle.

The key to this battery is its unique nanotechnology anode, which increases the actual surface area of the anode by 30 times. That allows for faster charging and discharging.

But the drawback is price. Costing perhaps three times that of the competition, this battery will remain pricey until mass production techniques are used.

Meanwhile, this is one of the many companies in the lithium-ion business to watch -- and one of the few that is publicly traded.

There are two basic types of batteries that will power the electric cars of the future -- the NiMH, for nickel metal-hydride, and the lithium-ion batteries first proposed in the 1970's and tweaked substantially since.

There are numerous lithium battery technologies getting research attention because no other battery delivers so much power at such a low weight. Anyone who uses a disposable lithium battery in their camera soon realizes that they weigh almost nothing, yet deliver more power for a longer period than anything available.

The problem with lithium is that it's extremely volatile. Nobody makes an over-the-counter lithium battery larger than AA because of the danger. Many are packaged to appear larger, but if you open it up you'll find AA batteries stacked inside.

Further, the FAA has rules against flying with lithium batteries. And the recent episode of exploding laptop batteries was all about the lithium.

There are numerous formulations for both rechargeable lithium-ion and lithium batteries depending on their eventual use. One of the considerations is operating temperature. Many modern battery technologies simply stop working when the temperature gets below freezing, which concerns carmakers.

According to the Altair brochure, though, the company's battery is designed to operate from minus-40 to plus-55 Celsius. This makes the battery practical for all sorts of uses including backup and wind-farm storage.

Whether this sort of technology will ever find its way into cell phones or laptops is unclear, but it looks like the best solution so far for the electric car.

This is a company worth watching.