Everything Old is New Again - Electrics and Hybrids Create World Wide Competition For a Better Battery

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Washington DC April 13, 2007; The AIADA newsletter reports that the car business may have gone global, but the rush to develop new technology to electrify 21st-century cars has rekindled some 20th-century-style economic nationalism.

The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. auto makers are increasingly worried that the battery technology they'll need to compete is getting locked up by Japanese rivals who moved more quickly to develop gas-electric hybrid vehicles.

So now, GM is talking up the importance of an American solution to the problem of building longer-lasting, more-reliable, less-costly automotive batteries, and looking for help from the federal government to subsidize those efforts.

Toyota, considered the industry's hybrid leader, is looking to adopt lithium-ion technology in the redesigned Prius, due to be launched as early as the second half of 2008.

Rivals, from GM to Honda, are fighting to match Toyota and are expected to come out with their own lithium-ion hybrids by the end of the decade.

Haruhiko Ando, a Japanese trade ministry official, believes the global leadership position of Japan in advanced automotive battery technology happened in part because of its long-standing strategy to make batteries a top research priority. "Detroit is belatedly realizing the true importance of having an edge in electrification of vehicles," Mr. Ando said.