Date: 16/06/2011

Mitsubishi's electric cars to use Toshiba's SCiB Lithium-ion batteries

Toshiba Corporation has announced that its SCiB battery has been selected by Mitsubishi Motors Corporation to power two new models of electric vehicles (EV), the i-MiEV and MINICAB-MiEV. The SCiB is designed to match the battery needs of electric cars such as safety, long life, rapid charging and good charging and output at very low temperatures. Due to quick charging feature the electric cars with these batteries can get 80% charged in 15 minutes.

Toshiba has employed lithium titanate oxide in the anode for the safety and to reduce the possibility of a puncture in the separator between the anode and cathode, so minimizing the risk of them coming contact into and short circuiting, and maintains battery performance levels even in severe operating conditions, including very low temperatures.

The SCiB offers 2.5 times more charge/discharge cycles than a typical lithium-ion battery. SciB is designed to reach about 80 percent of full capacity in some 15 minutes, about 50% in 10 minutes and about 25% in 5 minutes- half the times of a typical lithium-ion battery charged under the same conditions. The SCiB also generates little heat while recharging, eliminating the need for power to cool the battery module.

SCiB is also praised for offering a higher effective capacity than a typical lithium-ion battery, in that more of the stored charge can be used safely before recharging the battery. This, combined with highly efficient regenerative charging during braking or coasting downhill, allows the SCiB to deliver 1.7 times the driving distance per level of charge of a typical lithium-ion battery. This will allow for installation of smaller battery modules in vehicles and contribute to lower EV prices. The SCiB support rapid charging and good power output at temperatures as low as -30ºC.

The SCiB for Mitsubishi's new EV will be manufactured at Toshiba's Kashiwazaki Operations in Niigata prefecture, northwest Japan, a new facility dedicated to production of SCiB that came on line in February this year. Toshiba will seek to establish a plant operating structure able to respond quickly to market growth as the basis for expanding the SCiB business for EV, including hybrid and plug-in hybrid EVs.

In automotive-related power electronics technologies, Toshiba is targeting net sales of 800 billion yen by fiscal year 2015 from its concentration on motors, inverters and SCiB