Toyota plans to build two plants in Japan to produce batteries One plant will produce nickel-metal hydride batteries while another will produce lithium-ion batteries. Toyota to boost hybrid car production - Breaking News - Business - Breaking News
I like the idea but please be aware there there are no official statements in that article nor are there any source citations for the pertinant information. IE, I'll remain impartial to the news until Toyota makes an official statement. Thank you for posting it though, it is something to keep an eye on.
No one seems to have commented on this, but I posted a thread only an hour or so after Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco made an official statement that the Toyota-Panasonic joint venture is building a $192M NiMH manufacturing plant. "Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco said Friday. He declined to give more details." Here's the thread: http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-h...ta-building-192m-green-car-battery-plant.html .
Why would Toyota want to build a new factory to build MiMH batteries? Could Toyota be planning some sort ot 'Hybrid' power pack? Could a pack of MiMH batteries (proven in the current model) be used for the charge / discharge drive cycle and the Lithiums be used for a plug-in reservoir. I'm not sure of the technical details but, as I understand the two types of batteries, this would give the advantages of the robustness of the quick charge /discharge advantages of MiMH against the density of charge that the Lithiums can hold. There might even be some cost advantages of the combination.
Good thinking. Li-Ion is much more expensive than NiMH, so perhaps a "half and half," two-battery configuration could be the solution for a transition until Li-Ion production becomes more cost effective.
why? China and Japan have historical bias against each other. I'd be more concerned if they did build in China.
That's not entirely true, as it really depends on the format of the battery. NiMH as used in the Prius costs about $500 per kWh. However, Lithium-ion as used in the universal 18650 format (used to make camera, laptop, computer and Tesla EV batteries) comes in at around $350 per kWh. The only reason why people keep saying that lithium-ion is more expensive is because when the auto manufacturers go to the battery companies and say they want a 20 kWh battery, the engineers, suck in through their teeth and suggest a bespoke, hand-made large format battery, which obviously costs a fortune because there is no volume manufacturing set up for that size of battery yet. If, on the other hand, the large format was a mature format, or the auto manufacturer could make their packs out of smaller standard 18650 batteries, then the cost of lithium-ion is easily under $350 per kWh, and potentially cheaper still with some of the newer chemistries. At this price the battery for a 15 mile EV range (4 kWh, 75% utilisation LiIon battery) Prius would cost only $1,400, thereby adding only around $700 to the cost of today's Prius.
I bet they are planning on making an EV again. The old lawsuit that prevented Toyota from making the battery that was used in the old RAV 4 EV expires in 2010. (as noted in another priuschat thread). I can only hope that Toyota starts making the RAV4 EV again.
If the Lithium battery is so expensive and hard to produce why don't some of the big car companies (Like Honda, Toyota, GM, and Ford, etc...) open a joint plant to make the batteries and share in the costs. This is a better idea than making us wait another 5 years or more until they can make the batteries on their own. They really need to swallow their pride and get together... for the planet and the consumer.
Clett, thank you for the info. My source for saying Li-Ion was more expensive than NiMH was from electronics magazines, which repeatedly say that most cell phones still use NiMH because Li-Ion is more expensive.
