Panasonic to supply lithium-ion batteries for Toyota's eQ EV

With growing environmental concerns and escalating oil prices, demand for rechargeable batteries for eco-friendly vehicles is expected to grow rapidly. Panasonic is building up its battery business to meet such demand.

The company is already supplying nickel-metal hydride (Ni-MH) batteries for hybrid electric vehicles to a growing number of automotive manufacture's around the world, as well as lithium-ion batteries for hybrids, plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles.

Panasonic has already supplied lithium-ion batteries to Toyota's Prius Plug-in Hybrid and Prius α hybrid. The supply agreement with Toyota now expands to an all-electric vehicle model as well as hybrid and plug-in hybrid models.

An announcement on the eQ was made by Toyota this week. However, it also announced a severe curtailment of the roll out because it had, misread the market. Pure electric cars are selling poorly in contrast to pure electric e-bikes, military, forklift, airport ground support equipment and other pure electric vehicles. The currently best range in affordable electric vehicles of 240 km is not making customers rush to buy them at the high price premium over conventional vehicles. No one knows the tipping point of price/ performance but we are not yet there. We are in the decade of the hybrid.