Hitachi to supply lithium-ion batteries to GM for hybrids, sharply boost output capacity. Thursday July 2, 2009 Hitachi to supply lithium-ion batteries to GM - Yahoo! Finance TOKYO (AP) -- Japanese electronics maker Hitachi Ltd. said Thursday it will supply lithium-ion batteries for hybrid vehicles to General Motors Corp. in 2010 and sharply raise production capacity to meet surging demand for gas-electric cars. Hitachi currently makes 40,000 lithium-ion batteries per month and will lift the capacity to three million units. "We plan to boost our production capacity for lithium-ion batteries as we expect demand for hybrid vehicles will continue to grow worldwide," said Hitachi spokesman Shinya Yamada. He declined to say when Hitachi would lift the capacity. The Nikkei business daily said Thursday that Hitachi would invest around 30 billion yen ($311 million) to raise production capacity. But Yamada declined to confirm the report. Hitachi will also start supplying lithium-ion batteries for hybrid cars to GM next year, the company spokesman said without elaborating further. Toyota Motor Corp.'s hybrids now use nickel-metal hydride batteries. The world's largest automaker said last month it will use for the first time lithium-ion batteries for its plug-in hybrid cars. Using a lithium-ion battery will produce more energy, allowing hybrid cars to run more as an electric vehicle, but there have been some technological hurdles.
Interesting. Hitachi says it's producing 40,000 Lion batteries per month right now, but who are those packs going to? (are those batteries even for use in cars?) If they are making so many Lion batteries for cars, it kind of makes me wonder where are all those Lion-powered cars. It couldn't be Tesla, right? Their packs are supposed to be bunches of laptop batteries wired together, so I heard..
From what I read, Hitachi Lithium cells are very impressive. They claimed to have a very long life (10+ years) and they keep increasing the energy density at alarming rate. We are starting to hear about GM's new mild hybrid system. It may be as good as Honda's IMA or even better with the Lithium. I wouldn't be surprise if the Chevy Cruise is a mild hybrid and compete with the Insight.
i think they are generalizing, they are not building 40k lithium ion batteries for vehicles, they have just put their current output in vehicle battery term. I have read somewhere that Sony is looking into vehicle battery research as well. Competition will do miracles.
well, thing is that when you buy off the shelf batteries, anyone else can follow as well. In this case, Honda can buy same batteries.
