Now Toyota produces as many hybrids as all other carmakers combined.

"Still there's a lot of room to improve," he said, "especially on the battery side."

Enter Alan Gotcher, chief executive officer of Altairnano, a new company that draws on Indiana's native expertise in developing hybrid drive systems for vehicles.

It was formed in October with a band of General Motors/Delphi refugees that Gotcher "cherry picked." On Jan. 26 it produced the first Pop- Tart-sized fuel cell using lithium titanate spinel, a new material that appears to solve overheating problems found in existing large-format lithium batteries.

The new material means Altairnano can build a fuel cell capable of producing power for a long time and that can be quickly recharged. String a bunch of them together in a car, Gotcher said, and it could run 200 miles then recharge in about eight minutes.

That's less time than it takes to gas up and give the kids a potty break. And the battery could last as long as the car.

Altairnano plunked $5 million into the Flagship Enterprise Center just off I-69 in Anderson to make and test the fuel cells.

Instead of just selling the white lithium powder Altairnano makes in Reno, Nev., the company is making actual fuel cells to wow potential users, like Toyota. And it is redeploying GM/Delphi workers like David Lynch to do it.

That shows what Indiana can do when it leverages native assets and know-how. Lynch spent 35 years making batteries for GM and then Delphi. Now he is using that know-how to run the operation that Altairnano hopes is the next-generation battery.

Building on Indiana's manufacturing heritage isn't sexy, but it's the surest path to long-term economic growth. Too often it's short-changed in the pursuit of the next big thing.

Which brings us back to Toyota, a company that made zero vehicles here just 10 years ago. Last year it made 365,000 in Princeton, and may add capacity for 100,000 more in Lafayette.

Cuneo, who got a look at Altairnano on Monday, is bullish on Indiana. The company has doubled to $2 billion the amount it spends annually with Indiana suppliers.

"We're very positive about the state," Cuneo told me. "You can see that in how we've gone about developing here."

Electric hybrid technology will play a role in whatever fuel emerges to replace gasoline, Cuneo said. That means the past could be the future for Indiana.

"We're taking our experience with Delphi and working with these materials to make batteries perform better than we've ever seen," said Altairnano's Lynch. "Who would have thought?"