Japan's largest battery maker says lithium-ion will be hybrid battery standard of the

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Japan's largest battery maker says lithium-ion will be hybrid battery standard of the future



JAMES B. TREECE | Automotive News
Posted Date: 10/28/05
TOKYO -- Japan's largest maker of nickel-metal hydride batteries, used by Ford Motor Co. and other carmakers in hybrid vehicles, says the future belongs to lithium-ion batteries.

Sanyo Electric Co. predicts that by 2010, the majority of hybrid vehicles will use lithium-ion batteries. Currently, all hybrids use nickel-metal hydride batteries.

Toyota Motor Corp., General Motors and Ford Motor Co. executives endorsed his prediction.

"Lithium-ion batteries will be the main" batteries for hybrid vehicles, said Mitsuru Homma, president of Sanyo's Mobile Energy Co.

Although lithium-ion batteries are more expensive, their advantages over nickel-metal hydride batteries include higher voltage, power density and energy density.

Most cell phones use lithium-ion batteries.

But the batteries still have a number of problems.

Early lithium-ion batteries had a tendency to short-circuit internally, sometimes melting cell-phone cases. More testing is needed to ensure that the short-circuit problem has been solved. In addition, the batteries have yet to be proved crashworthy.

Homma says his company supplies 50 percent of the world's nickel-metal hydride batteries, which are used in PCs, cell phones and digital cameras.

Sanyo has a 35-percent share of the world's market for lithium-ion and lithium-polymer batteries, Homma says.



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source:http://www.autoweek.com/news.cms?newsId=103453
 
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