Electric battery common fuels such as gasoline. In automobiles, this is somewhat offset by the higher efficiency of electric motors in converting chemical energy to mechanical work, compared to combustion engines. The usage of "battery" to describe a group of electrical devices dates to Benjamin Franklin, who in 1748 described multiple Leyden jars by analogy to a battery of cannon (Benjamin Franklin borrowed the term "battery" from the military, which refers to weapons functioning together). Italian physicist Alessandro Volta built and described the first electrochemical battery, the voltaic pile, in 1800. This was a stack of copper and zinc plates, separated by
Plug-in electric vehicles in Japan sold 52,234 plug-in electric vehicles in Japan since July 2009. The first prototype battery switch station from Better Place was demonstrated in Yokohama on May 14, 2009. On April 2010, a 90-day switchable-battery electric taxi demonstration project was launched in Tokyo, using three Nissan Rogue crossover utility vehicles, converted into electric cars with switchable batteries provided by A123 Systems. The battery switch station deployed in Tokyo is more advanced than the Yokohama switch system demonstrated in 2009. During the three-month field test the EV taxis accumulated over and swapped batteries 2,122 times, with an average battery swap time of 59.1