In the late 1950s, Essex Fells, N.J. was a typical white-collar town. A number of professionals, mostly stockbrokers and attorneys, rode the train to Manhattan each morning for work.
Tony Fraioli was not one of these men.
In the basement of his New Jersey home was a laboratory stacked with shelves holding glass jars of chemicals and solutions and a sink for developing photographs. Here, Tony worked on a long-life lithium battery that would run one of the first electric cars and cause a minor explosion that could be heard by his family upstairs at the dinner table.
