Fisker Nina spy photo March 29, 2012

The facts that you got wrong in this thread
1) Fisker had the manufacturing defect - it was A123
2) BMW buys batteries from toyota and not A123 - It is the other way around
3) Toyota did the R&D on the lithium on the prius phv - it was Sanyo, which Panasonic then bought and brought into the PEV joint venture.
4) You seem to imply that Pansonic is part of toyota which it is not, they are partners on PEV.

I definitely was not saying that PEV can not shift to lithium sucessfully. I never put that type of drivel out.

Toyota will be using two sets of lithium this year. Some assembled by PEV in the prius phv and alpha, some assmbled by tesla from Panasonic consumer cells in the RAV. Together toyota may be the number 3 producer of Lithium batteries this year behind LG Chem and Nissan. I am glad that Panasonic does not have a monopoly on lithium like they do on nimh. Competition allows technology to improve.

Can you sight a design win? The business press says R&D. I will assume you are reading your own blog again and making stuff up, if you can't site any reliable source. BMW is actually one of my customers, and I have not heard anything about them throwing away the other vendors. Please stick to the topic and stop your main story line of toyota is great, it should have a monopoly in all batteries, everyone else sucks. Its tiresome.

 

Will this thing guzzle energy like the Karma? I don't see much of a space for this company in light of Tesla's superior offering shortly with the Model S.

 

we will see what happens in 3 years time... i am sure i will be correct .

You need to be able to see through PR's and towards reality. I have been following this topic for 10 years now, and have read 1000's of PRs that have never turned into reality. From Ford, GM, let alone startups like A123.

Toyota does not have monopoly on nimh and they wont have monopoly on lion. The fact that Toyota produces >1,000,000 nimh batteries a year is not a monopoly. They simply have products that require such production, thus enabling of large scale manufacturing savings.

What I am saying is that nobody else has viable product out there right now. How many batteries is LG Chem making? How about Nissan? A123?

It is not large scale manufacturing.

On the other hand, by the time Toyota decides to switch to lion completely (2014? 2015?), they will need millions of batteries per year for their own cars.

it is really not that hard to understand. Someone making million batteries is going to make them at significantly lower cost than company manufacturing mere thousands.

 

main point here was that if you entrust production of key component of your vehicle to some startup that will likely go out of business, then you are not serious about that.

when ford decides to outsource main components of their Ford Connect EV to JCI and JCI files for bankruptcy, then to me it seems like Ford is doing it for PR and not actually investing money into development of their EVs.

Who is doing their Focus EV?

 

3 years in not enough to show the hazzards of vertical integration. It took gm about 20. It makes you move more slowly to market and technology changes. On this round it slowed the phv down a little, but fast follower strategy may be adventagous.

Panasonic when buying Sanyo created a monopoly in Nimh. Governments allowed the merger because they see Li batteries as a competitor so the monopoly will be short lived. There are a number of patents and behaviors that make it impossible for other companies to compete in Nimh.

As I said in my earlier post, GM saw danger on A123 for manufacturing, that is why they chose LG Chem (compact power) for their battery, with a large manufacturing company behind them. A123 has very good technology with some great R&D scientists, but not much manufacturing. Fisker took a risk and it hurt them. Fisker is a great car designer, but the odds are long against his company even without problems with A123. This puts a cash squeeze on A123, and they may need to partner with a bigger company. BMW when they gave A123 the design win, knew that JCI-saft or SB LiMotive could produce batteries for the car if A123 had trouble.

That would suck for toyota as well as all north american manufacturers. JCI is one of the key suppliers integrated into the TMS. Its the only one that can actually follow toyota's JIT manufacturing on the Camry seats. I know JCI and toyota design some interiors together. If JCI goes under Toyota loses money in the US for at least a year. Toyota has created a system of key suppliers on many parts.

LG Chem