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| The Pub For General Automotive Related Talk |
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05-03-2009, 10:44 PM
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Banned
Join Date: Feb 2008
Posts: 363
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By Alan Ohnsman
March 5 (Bloomberg) -- Ford Motor Co.’s chief executive officer said the U.S. has “abdicated” an emerging market for advanced batteries needed for electric cars to Asia’s biggest economies and should spur a domestic industry in the technology. “Electric cars are going to be part of our future,” Alan Mulally said yesterday in Santa Barbara, California, at a conference sponsored by the Wall Street Journal. “It’s really being led by Japan, Korea and China.” Autos running solely on lithium-ion batteries, along with new types of hybrid-electric models, more-efficient gasoline engines and eventually hydrogen-powered cars are needed to cut U.S. reliance on imported oil, Mulally said. Ford, the second- largest U.S. automaker, plans to bring out a battery-powered model next year. Panasonic EV Energy Co., a Toyota Motor Corp. subsidiary, is the largest maker of hybrid batteries and this year will open a large-scale assembly line to make lithium-ion packs. Japan’s NEC Corp. and GS Yuasa Corp. are designing advanced batteries for Nissan Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co. models. BYD Co., a Chinese carmaker backed by billionaire investor Warren Buffett, plans to sell plug-in hybrids to the U.S. in 2011 using its own lithium-ion batteries. “We’re going to get off Mideast oil and get on Chinese batteries,” billionaire hedge-fund manager T. Boone Pickens said to Mulally, during a question and answer portion of the conference. “How does that make us energy independent?” General Motors Corp. tapped South Korea’s LG Chem Ltd. to supply lithium-ion packs for its Volt plug-in hybrid. Ford has said Johnson Controls-Saft, a joint venture between U.S.-based Johnson Controls Inc. and France’s Saft Groupe S.A., initially will make lithium cells for a Ford plug-in in Nersac, France, before shifting production to the U.S. To contact the reporter on this story: Alan Ohnsman in Los Angeles at aohnsman@bloomberg.net http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...transportation |
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Ford’s Mulally Says U.S. Lags Asian Electric-Car Battery Makers
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