They of course were doing it in coroperation with a lead acid battery maker, and were a bunch of engineers in a fully equiped facility...
The article listed above goes into some of the details.... But not any of the down and dirty details needed for others to also make this swap out and who knows what all was required to make it happen....
What this does mean though ... is that other batteries can be used in the insight to replace the NiMH and with lead acid being a option a cheaper alternative is out there ... The big remaining question is what is required to make it happen?????
I am still in school ... and yet do not know enough to figure it out on my own... continued web searching has not yeilded more answers for me ... so Until I am more educated or until someone already more educated does the work to figure it out this is the key and main missing piece of detail needed to make this kind of swap out.
To those who already knew about this.... I don't think anything new has happened.... they made the switch proved it would work and haven't done anything else with it since....