Lithium revolution still years away?

Even mild hybrids will use lithium

In 2008 Continental Automotive will begin series production of lithium-ion battery packs, which is good news since Continental is one of the suppliers of the Chevy Volt. Still, Continental is only planning on producing a few thousand battery packs.

"It will not be a hundred thousand units a year," stated CEO Manfred Wennmer recently,"but certainly a few thousand.... This is the battery of the future: for both full- and mild-, as well as plug-in hybrid drive and pure electric cars."

While it's great news to hear that some companies are beginning to scale towards the mass production of lithium battery packs, it's also a reminder that the lithium revolution is still, minimally, several years away from wide scale reality.