Toyota adopts Tesla's laptop battery strategy

Toyota Motor Corp., Daimler AG and Bayerische Motoren Werke AG are turning to laptops for a cheaper way to power their electric cars -- and their sales.

Automakers are testing packs of lithium-ion batteries assembled by Silicon Valley startup Tesla Motors Inc. that cost less than bigger, car-only batteries favored by General Motors Co., Nissan Motor Co. and Mitsubishi Motor Corp. A pack of 6,831 cylinder-shaped dewalt batteries cells made by Panasonic Corp. powers Tesla's $109,000 Roadster sports car for up to 245 miles per charge.



The car industry will help lithium-ion battery makers more than triple sales to $60 billion in a decade from 1.5 trillion yen in the year ending in March, according to Sanyo Electric Co., the world's biggest maker of the sony laptop batteries. Rechargeable consumer-electronics batteries benefit from an economy of scale that may help cut manufacturing costs and sticker prices in the nascent electric-car industry, said Koji Endo, a Tokyo-based analyst at Advanced Research Japan.



"It may lead to the total component cost of an electric car getting lower than that of a gasoline car,sony camcorder batteries for sony camcorder." Endo said. "As the cost lowers, there'll be more likelihood that retail prices of electric cars will drop."


EV prices are higher than three-quarters of the autos now sold, canon camera batteries for canon cameras, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, with GM's Chevrolet Volt selling for $41,000 and Nissan's Leaf for $32,780. Electric vehicles cost about twice as much to produce as gasoline-engine cars because the batteries are so expensive, according to consultant Frost & Sullivan Inc.


Sales of EVs and hybrids, including plug-in models, nokia batteries for nokia mobile phones. will reach about 954,000 worldwide this year, or about 2.2 percent of all car sales, J.D. Power and Associates, an industry forecaster, estimated in October.


Government subsidies may help boost sales of plug-in hybrids and EVs to 9 percent of auto sales in 2020, Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimated last month.
Panasonic, the majority shareholder in Sanyo, is the main supplier of lithium-ion cells to Tesla and bought a $30 million stake in the company last month. Toyota and Daimler also own Tesla stakes.