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.
