Will US makers cash in on plastic battery?
07:20 PM ET 01/24/99
NEW YORK, Jan 24 (Reuters) - The race to the marketplace for a commercially viable plastic lithium ion battery is on, and while the technology was developed in U.S. labs, the Japanese may beat everyone to the tape, according to an article in Barron's.
The plastic lithium ion is considered the next generation of battery, and a potential multibillion dollar product. Such a battery would be so light that it will make cell phones, video cameras and notebook computers more portable and less bulky. The plastic battery would also be flexible enough to be molded around a mobile phone's innards, Barron's said.
Dozens of companies worldwide are racing to develop the plastic battery, the paper said, but because the industry is so secretive, it's difficult to call the race. Barrons said it seems clear, however, that three publicly traded American pure plays in the industry, Valence Technology, Ultralife Batteries and Lithium Technology, probably will not be among them.
A fourth American company, High Energy Technologies has a shot at winning the plastic battery race, the paper said. But its fate likely depends on the willingness of new parent Thomas & Betts Corp. to continue pouring money into research and development.
Meanwhile, a handful of Japanese companies with considerable manufacturing and financial clout are thought to be working to develop this next generation of batteries, including names like Sony and Toshiba Corp.
"It's likely that the Japanese will control the pace of the roll-out of the technology in this industry, the way Intel controls the chip industry," Barron's quotes one battery industry veteran as saying, warning that no one should view the lack of announcements from Japanese companies as evidence that the Japanese aren't making any progress. |
