It is generally admitted that Peukert's law has its origin in the diffusion processes occurring in the lead acid battery. Some authors claim however that the derivation of Peukert's law must be based on the existence of semiconducting layers in the electrodes of the lead acid battery. In this paper we review the scarce literature concerning this subject. We find that the presence of semiconducting layers is speculative and that the existence of such layers is not sufficient to verify Peukert's law.