Similarly, stimulus investments have helped transform the United States from a bit player in international advanced battery markets to a global competitor with an estimated 20 percent of worldwide manufacturing capacity online by 2012, all while potentially driving down the cost of electric vehicle batteries by up to 70%.
The problems sparked a battery fire on a parked Japan Airlines 787 at Boston's Logan International Airport and another incident in which battery smoke forced an emergency landing of an All Nippon Airways (ANA) 787 in Japan.
Immediately after his arrival in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toured an Iron Dome battery at Ben Gurion International Airport in a vivid display of U.S. security assistance to Israel.
National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Peter Knudson said the agency made the request after recently becoming aware of battery problems at ANA that occurred before a Jan. 7 battery fire in a 787 parked at Boston's Logan International Airport.
Boeing had delivered 50 planes to eight airlines in seven countries when a fire erupted in a battery aboard a Japan Airlines 787 parked at Boston's Logan International Airport on Jan. 7.
In the first incident, the battery fire occurred in a Japan Airlines 787 that had already landed at Boston's Logan International Airport and was empty of passengers.
It all works offline too, which should extend battery life and keep that navigation humming even while puttering about in data dead zones without racking up international roaming charges (take that, Google).