Panasonic EV Energy expanding NiMH capacity by 50%
There is more evidence that Toyota isn't ready to give up on NiMH batteries just yet. Panasonic EV Energy, the joint venture of Toyota and Matsushita to produce batteries for hybrid vehicles is putting up a new plant next their existing facility Shizuoka Prefecture to crank up capacity by fifty percent. The extra production capacity will allow Panasonic EV Energy to provide battery packs for up to 750,000 hybrid vehicles per year. Eventually the joint venture company will also supply lithium packs to Toyota, but first Panasonic will have to learn how to make robust lithium packs.
[Source: GreenCarCongress]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
small-wee-wee 12:52PM (7/15/2007)
I think the title should read... expanding production capacity by 50%. As it reads now it says that there is some breakthrough in capacity of the cells which is not what the article is about.
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Darius 2:21PM (7/15/2007)
Does anyone else think that sticking with NiMH instead of going to lithium has more to do with return on investment then anything else? I think they want to milk the existing cow as much as they can before moving on.
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Sam Abuelsamid 7:32PM (7/15/2007)
Darius, it has nothing to do with protecting an investment. Panasonic made the wrong call on lithium chemistry and went with the type used in most consumer electronics and laptop cells. This chemistry is not as thermally stable as that being developed by companies like A123 and LG Chem and is apparently not proving to be robust enough to meet automotive requirements for Toyota.
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Chris M 10:17PM (7/15/2007)
I had read in a review of the newest Ford Escape hybrid that it was using a NiMH battery pack from Panasonic. Ford had been using a Sanyo battery pack made from cylindrical cells, but the Panasonic NiMH pack uses prismatic cells that are more compact and lighter.
While LiIon may eventually replace NiMH, currently NiMH batteries are still a good choice for some hybrids and small EVs. The production increase may simply reflect an expected increase in sales.
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Richard Brown 7:53AM (7/16/2007)
The new carbon fiber lead batteries from Firefly Energy have as much energy density, same recharge speed and temperature range as the NiMH at half the cost (or less). Look for a two tier system to emerge, cheaper electric cars using the Firefly technology and high end cars using one of the Lithium technologies. NiMH should fade out of the picture unless some significant breakthroughs develop.
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