Toyota is producing Prius hybrids at the rate of about 2,000 a
month for Japan. Furthermore, they had announced in the Automotive News last year that they planned to produce an additional 20,000 Prius' late this year for export to Europe and the US.
Next, comes Honda, who has a three percent investment in Ovonic
Battery and is expected to introduce their EV later this year,
beating Toyota's Prius introduction in the US. What batteries do you think they will have? In particular, now that they can at long last purchase our current NiMH battery technology from a Japanese supplier, which had not been available to them up until now?
Next, comes GM, who is our joint venture partner. The only question
that remains unanswered is how many EV's and HEV's they plan to produce. The new GM/EV with our latest advanced GMOvonicII batteries
were to be 80Wh/kg and are supposedly due out this fall. The GM hybrid
was scheduled to come out next fall. But, at the time they made that announcement they were not aware of Toyota's Prius early introduction
plans in the US. And, they were not aware of Honda's aggressive plans
to beat Toyota into the US market.
GM has made a number of boastful statements to the press, including
the Automotive News over the past few years, that they were the leader in EV/HEV technology and planned to remain there. It should be interesting to see what develops. Will they allow Toyota and Honda to beat them at their own game by being first into the US marketplace?
What do you think?
Additionally, what about Ford and the European mfg'rs? There are a total of 43 vehicle mfgr's in the world that produced 58 million
vehicles last year. Every "major" mfg'r has committed to EV and/or
HEV technology in order to remain competitive, in light of the
world-wide environmental global warming problems.
Remember, it only takes 20,000 battery packs a year for GM to realize
production cost efficency to be competitive with ice vehicles. Add to this list the forthcoming L/S/I batteries.
The race is finally heating up and, in my opinion, ECD should be the winner at long last.
Regards.
c |
