On Wednesday, Volkswagen and Sanyo Electric announced a partnership to develop lithium-ion batteries, joining the Toyota/Panasonic and Matsushita, Nissan/Automotive Energy Supply and GM/A123Systems collaborations in the race to bring high-volume hybrids to market.
Sanyo holds the world’s biggest share of computer and cell phone lithium-ion batteries, and has committed to spending 80 billion yen (about $773 million) over seven years on the project. The electronics giant hopes to start producing the automotive-grade batteries as early as next year, according to Automotive News reports.
The initial run will come from a new manufacturing line at Sanyo’s existing Tokushima, Japan factory, with a dedicated new factory going online by April, 2010, capable of producing between 15,000 and 20,000 units. By 2011, Sanyo plans to begin production of another lithium-ion battery to be used in rechargeable plug-in hybrids.
05/28, 11:01 AM
posted by:
xyunya
I thought that the biggest share of ion lithium batteries belongs to Sony. All those burning Apples and Dells were loaded with Sony batteries.
05/28, 2:20 PM
posted by:
shaver
The Sony batteries are made by Sanyo, marketed by Sony.
05/28, 7:26 PM
posted by:
Jordan
i’m pretty sure the exploding batteries were manufactured by sony. the replacements they sent out were sanyos (at least the replacement i received was).