By fall 2010, Hitachi plans increase its production capacity for lithium ion batteries by 600 percent in the first phase of a major expansion. Hitachi will be supplying the batteries for General Motor's second-generation mild hybrid system that debuts late next year for 2011 model year vehicles. GM has placed an order for enough cells to support 100,000 hybrid vehicles a year. Beyond that, Hitachi is planning to ramp up to build cells for 700,000 hybrids a year by 2015, a 70-fold increase from current levels. The expansion and new production will occur at Hitachi Vehicle Energy Ltd's Tokai factory in Ibaraki Prefecture in Japan. So far most of Hitachi's lithium ion production has been for commercial vehicle applications and the GM batteries will be the first light duty hybrid.

[Source: Reuters]

Hitachi has just announced a new generation of its lithium ion batteries with significantly more specific power than current cells. The new cells have 70 percent more power than current cells and 50 percent more than the next-generation cells that go into production in 2010. The new cells are claimed to produce 4,500 W/kg along with 20 percent longer life than existing units. Hitachi expects to start producing the new cells sometime in the middle of the next decade.

In the meantime, Hitachi will be supplying lithium ion batteries to General Motors in 2010 for the next generation of the automaker's mild hybrid system. The nickel metal hydride battery pack in the current mild hybrids will be replaced by a smaller lighter lithium unit along with a significantly more powerful motor/generator.

[Source: Green Car Congress]

Click above for a high-res gallery of the Subaru R1e

News comes by way of the Japanese news resource Nikkei that Hitachi Maxell is currently hard at work on a new lithium-based battery which does away with the problematic cobalt ingredient. We've gotten pretty used to seeing some very wild claims when it comes to new battery tech, so it may be hard to get too excited about this particular announcement until we actually see some goods to go along with it, but the idea of a battery with twenty times higher energy capacity is surely an exciting claim. Instead of the cobalt, manganese is being cited as the other main ingredient.

Along with the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology and Nagasaki University, Fuji Heavy Industries is said to be involved. As you are probably already aware, Fuji is the parent company of Subaru, which has previously announced its interest in offering electric cars for sale. If they came with batteries this powerful, and at a reasonable price, color us very interested indeed.

[Source: Nikkei - sub. req'd via Engadget]