02.10.2010 FIAT SIGNS LITHIUM ION BATTERY TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT DEAL WITH TOSHIBA

FIAT BRAVO SPORT T-JET MODEL YEAR 2011

Japanese electronics giant Toshiba Corporation is set to team up with the Fiat Group in an ambitious project to jointly develop next-generation rapid-charge lithium ion batteries destined for hybrid vehicles, working closely with the carmakers' Turin-based R&D unit Centro Ricerche Fiat.

At the same time Toshiba will also work in tandem with VW Group majority owned truck maker Scania in the similar field of development. The Japanese firm is already working on developing next-generation batteries (as well as other automotive components) in a recently-struck deal with carmaker Mitsubishi.

The step by Toshiba comes as it seeks to quickly expand its automotive battery market share. In the electronics components' sector Toshiba is last major company to offer lithium ion batteries and it is looking to rapidly catch up and side step the opposition through a major investment to develop rapid charge batteries.

Fiat is also a auto sector laggard in this area, one of the few major vehicle manufacturers not to offer any hybrid models in its range while in the electric vehicle (EV) sector it is also far behind to opposition, both mainly thanks to a starvation of its R&D budgeting in recent years. Fiat's CEO Sergio Marchionne doesn't foresee the showroom viability of hybrid or electric cars within the scopes of his recent five-year business plans for both Fiat and also the Chrysler Group, where he holds the CEO's role as well, and expects that the latter will be selling only a few tens of thousands of units of EVs a year by around 2015.

Toshiba hopes to catch up ground quickly thanks to a new state-of-the art plant that it opened last week in Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture in Japan. This factory will be the Japanese firm's first mass-production facility for manufacturing lithium ion batteries. Production will start at around half a million units per month this year before doubling to 1 million units per month next year.

"Production is due to begin next February, but I've ordered the start date to be brought forward," said President Norio Sasaki. Toshiba will market the new range of batteries for a wide range of industrial applications, such as forklift trucks and smart grids. By 2015 Toshiba is targeting 200 billion yen in annual sales which will see it hopefully "capturing at least 10 per cent of the global market," Sasaki added.
 

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