Taiwanese Car Battery Suppliers to Embrace Green Boom

Taipei, Sept. 28, 2009 (CENS)--With the growing global concerns about environmental protection boosting development of electric cars and related applications of green technologies, Taiwanese car battery are poised to embrace the green booms in the future.

DRAMeXchange, a global market research institute, noted that success of electric cars in the consumer market hinges on development of marketable lithium batteries, which require long battery life and mature mass production technology to warrant lower prices of the batteries.

The number of electric cars is estimated to hit around 2 million units worldwide in the next three years, with up to 600,000 to be powered by lithium batteries. The corresponding figures will shoot up to 4.5 million and 4 million units, respectively, in 2015, according to DRAMeXchange. Noteworthy is that production lines for traditional gasoline-fueled cars are likely to be completely shut down in 2035.

The emerging market opportunities have lured a number of Taiwanese battery material and car battery makers. Tatung Fine Chemicals Co., Ltd., for instance, has been engaged in development of cathode materials for car batteries. The firm develops a cutting-edge production methodology, which can improve distribution of ions in its cathode material to help enhance charging performance of a battery.

In the meantime, Hirose Tech Co., Ltd., a company re-invested in by Acer Inc.'s subsidiary and supplying production and inspection equipment for solar cells and display panels, has also worked out nanometer lithium iron phosphate and successfully set up a mass production line with a monthly production capacity of 20 metric tons of the cathode material.

However, the most active maker is Formosa Energy & Material Technology Co., Ltd., who can mass produce cathode materials for lithium batteries and plans to expand its output to 400 metric tons a month at the end of 2010 from current 120 metric tons.

E-One Moli Energy Corp., also globally known with its own brand Molicel, has been supplying its battery cells for use in BMW's Mini E series electric cars, and has had its lithium battery cells certificated by Ford. The firm, now the world's second-largest maker of lithium battery cells for electric cars and machine tools in terms of global market share now, has kicked off construction of its second plant, which will help to boost the firm's current monthly capacity of 2.5 million metric tons to 10 million metric tons in the future.