Batteries Lead To Marriage
Which part of the car of the future can cost more than half of the car, but has a lifespan a little better than a set of brake disks? The battery. No wonder that battery making is what suppliers focus on. If EVs catch on, you want to be in the battery business. Toshiba and Mitsubishi Motors have ganged-up to produce batteries together, says The Nikkei [sub].
For a year, Toshiba and Mitsubishi have been tinkering with a ‘super-charge ion battery’, or SCiB, which promises long life and fast recharging speed. Now they seem to be ready for a more formal arrangement. Several other companies have been or will be cementing similar battery-driven alliances.
Toshiba wants to produce SCiB batteries at their Kashiwazaki plant in Japan. On Friday,he Nikkei reported that Toshiba will supply lithium ion batteries for an electric vehicle that Mitsubishi Motors plans to roll out in the near future. The newspaper also said that PSA is interested to buy Toshiba batteries together with Mitsubishi Motors.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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I'd swear I've read that the batteries in the Toyota Prius were giving 100k+ miles worth of life. Though I don't doubt that if electric cars become mainstream we'll see the usual cheap bastard Big Corp products, engineered to last only as long as they feel they can get away with.
If batteries are the business to be in, they why has A123 Systems, Inc. (ticker: AONE) tanked this year after their IPO and government subsudies to develop and manufacturer car batteries? This should have been a much stronger play (and stock) then Tesla. Twotone
I am sure that in the early days of the auto industry, when steam, gasoline, and electric cars were still duking it out, the electric-car guys were saying "If we could only get a good battery we could sell millions of these things." Well, what's changed now? The electric cars got left behind even though the electric starter hadn't been invented yet, and folks had to hand-crank their Model T's. The chemistry of batteries has been and will be more complicated and expensive in terms of operating conditions, inputs, and outputs, than the chemistry of internal combustion.
Nitpicking, I know, but rather a poor intro, considering "brake disks" (which actual car-people call "rotors") often outlive the rest of vehicle...