The batteries are lighter and more powerful than the nickel-metal hydride batteries found in the Toyota Prius, Ford Escape and other hybrids on the road today.
Tapping the market
The market potential is huge, given government mandates that vehicles beef up their gas mileage and reduce tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases. The market potential for lithium batteries has been pegged to grow to $16 billion by 2020.
Johnson Controls' new business accelerator group, to be led by Mary Ann Wright, who has been chief executive of the company's joint venture with Saft, will explore how the industry will get parts and how products will be recycled, and will address questions about the business model for plug-in hybrids, said Alex Molinaroli, president of the company's power solutions business.
"And the decisions being made today are going to be the ones that determine not only what this business looks like in the future but what this industry looks like in the future," he said. "We're talking about having a role in shaping the industry itself."
On a much smaller scale, a sales effort is under way at Electricharge Mobility, a company that is looking to install portable plug-in charging stations around the Upper Midwest. The company has a license to sell the stations, made by Coulomb Technologies of Campbell, Calif., in Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota.
Company representatives are meeting with city planners, hospitals, utilities and others, trying to get the word out to help make sure enough stations are available by the time the auto industry rolls out the Chevrolet Volt, Nissan Leaf and other all-electric and plug-in hybrid-electric cars.
Milwaukee Area Technical College is considering buying five of the charging stations, said George Stone, co-chair of the college's sustainability committee.
Said Dan Healy of Electricharge: "The infrastructure needs to happen just slightly ahead of all the cars coming out."
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