Nissan has been field testing lithium ion hybrid batteries for 3 years
In April of last year, Nissan and NEC announced plans to establish a joint venture to produce automotive-format lithium ion battery packs. It now turns out the companies have been working together on the technology since 2000. Not only that, they have been field testing a fleet of twenty hybrid Nissan Tinos equipped with lithium batteries since 2004. At the SAE Hybrid Vehicle Technology Symposium in San Diego this week, Nissan's Toshio Hirota revealed the test program that they have been running. One of the twenty cars has run over 150,000 miles. According to Toshio, they are evaluating many different chemistries, but the test program has been running with cells that use a manganese spinel anode. That's the same type being supplied by LG Chem for the Chevy Volt development program. The packs have so far proven to be very efficient and provide more consistent power than NiMH packs.
[Source: GreenCarCongress]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
psarhjinian 8:24AM (2/18/2008)
You know, this suprises me. Carlos Ghosn (Nissan's CEO is a "personality" (in the same sense as Dieter Zeitsche and Bob Lutz) and I'm impressed that this was kept under wraps until now.
Good for them.
Reply