Lead carbon battery is a novel-type battery which combines the traditional lead acid battery and supercapacitor together, which is characterized by rapid charge-discharge rate, superior cycling performance, etc. The carbon material used in lead-carbon battery has many possible working mechanism, such as electrical conduction mechanism, parallel reaction mechanism as well as double-layer storage mechanism. The harsh working condition of lead acid battery make it has special requirements for the carbon, including the characters of anti-oxidation properties, specific surface area, electrochemical active and particle size, which make the general carbon types are unsuitable. There are many researches relating to the key materials of the lead-carbon batteries, from single carbon materials to functionalized carbon, which have made huge progress in the recent 10 years. The research history of the lead carbon battery, working mechanism of the carbon material as well as the special requirements for carbon of the lead-carbon battery are presented in this paper. Besides, the research status of the active carbon for lead-carbon batteries in some companies in recent years is summarized.