Sanyo, the Japanese electronics giant, said today that it is in talks with six car makers about the supply of batteries for fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles — one of few growth areas in the automotive industry.
“We are talking with more than five or six car makers on the co-development and supply of auto-use batteries,” Masato Ito, Sanyo Electric’s senior vice president, told Reuters.
Sanyo and Volkswagen have been jointly developing lithium-ion batteries as the race to the next generation of hybrid cars speeds up. Lithium-ion batteries are capable of holding more power than the nickel batteries that power the current hybrids.
Toyota plans to start producing lithium-ion batteries for its market-leading Prius next year in a joint venture with Matsushita Electric Industrial. Nissan has a joint venture with NEC to do the same.
