https://www.wired.com/story/a-nobel-for-gadgets-lithium-ion-batteries-win-the-prize/

While the Nobel prizes can sometimes dive into foundational but seemingly rarified corners of the sciences, Wednesday morning’s announcement of the prize for chemistry reached into billions of people’s pockets—and homes, offices, workshops, cars … pretty much the entire infrastructure of modern life. For their invention of the rechargeable lithium-ion battery, key to everything from mobile phones to electric cars, John B. Goodenough of U Texas Austin, M. Stanley Wittingham of SUNY Binghamton, and Akira Yoshino of Miejo University will take home medals and a share of $906,000.

“Amazing. Surprising,” Yoshino said by phone at the press conference announcing the prize. Which, sure, maybe, though a September panel sponsored by the American Chemical Society predicted a win for Goodenough and lithium-ion rechargeables; he and the tech have been a longtime favorite. (The genome-editing technology Crispr was a dark horse.)