NiMH hybrids a long way from dead

Still the battery of choice for hybrids

Over the weekend it was reported that Sanyo will supply enough NiMH batteries for several tens of thousands of Peugeot hybrid vehicles per year beginning in 2011. While its not necessarily breaking news that Peugeot is going to develop hybrids - we've known that for some time - Peugeot's choice of battery is interesting.

For years, Ford has complained about a shortage of NiMH batteries. Yet, Ford is also supplied by Sanyo, as is Honda, and not long ago Honda indicated that it was going to significantly increase its production of hybrid cars. Combined with Ford and now Peugeot, its seems that Sanyo must be preparing for a serious uptick in NiMH production.

Likewise, Sanyo will also supply lithium-ion batteries to Toyota and Volkswagen.

Even more interesting, however, is the fact that Sanyo is coming under the control of Panasonic. For more than a decade Panasonic has partnered with Toyota to develop and produce NiMH batteries, a partnership that is now increasing NiMH production to more than 1,000,000 battery packs per year for Toyota alone.

Apparently, NiMH technology isn't dead yet, and Toyota seems extremely well positioned to benefit from this uptick in scale.

Batteries: The key to the automotive Revolution? Part 1

President Bush at Johnson Controls

Just before the Detroit Auto Show, Toyota started hyping its FT-HS hybrid concept, a next-generation hybrid produced with lithium-ion batteries. As a result of these new batteries, Toyota was able to develop a hybrid sports car capable of achieving speeds of 0 -60 in less than 4 seconds, yet using the fuel of only a 4 cylinder economy car.

Likewise, GM announced the future was electric, plug-in hybrids were coming, and lithium-ion battery contracts had been awarded. Then at NAIAS GM upped the ante and debuted the Volt plug-in hybrid concept, an auto capable of achieving up to 40 miles per charge on pure electricity and up to 150 mpg if traveling 60 miles or less between charges. Additionally, the vehicle has a range of more than 600 miles.

In both cases, lithium-ion batteries enable each of these hybrid vehicles to achieve such amazing results. Consequently, batteries are beginning to emerge as one of the most important technologies behind the automotive revolution.

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