NYT blog scientifically challenged?

From a NYT blog by Matthew Wald:

Electric cars are designed so that when a driver hits the brake pedal, the electric motors switch functions and become generators, converting momentum back into current.

The piece is about a patent allowance to AFS Trinity for combining a capacitor with a traditional battery in the context of electric-powered vehicles.

Also from the blog: Engineers refer to these two qualities – the ability to store energy, and the ability to deliver it quickly, as energy and power.

Of tax breaks in the electric car business:

But the part of the tax code written to promote pure electric cars and plug-in hybrids favors extra batteries, the executive said, providing a $2,500 credit if the vehicle has at least five kilowatt-hours and another $417 for each additional kilowatt-hour. The maximum credit is $7,500, which works out to 16 kilowatt-hours. Perhaps not coincidentally, that is what the Chevy Volt, due out this fall, will carry.

“It was written for the Volt,” contends Mr. Furia, who would like the law amended to reflect not just energy, which the batteries provide, but power, which his capacitors provide.