Friday October 07, 2005

GM sells assets to Toyota

peakoil.com -> bloomberg.com :

General Motors Corp. agreed to sell its holdings in Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. to Toyota for about $740 million, or less than half their value on GM's books, as it struggles with rising losses. The Fuji stake had been valued at $1.5 billion, the automaker said. "It's surprising how fast GM is selling off the family silver," said Graeme Maxton, a director of the Economist Intelligence Unit in Hong Kong. "It rings alarm bells."

A stake in Fuji Heavy will give Toyota access to the company's technology for batteries which can be used in hybrid gasoline-electric cars. Hybrids such as Toyota's Prius and Honda's Civic are equipped with nickel hydride batteries made by Panasonic EV Energy Co. Fuji Heavy's Chief Executive Officer Kyoji Takenaka has said his company's manganese lithium-ion batteries last longer than Panasonic's nickel hydride batteries and handle temperature extremes better.

- Will the next-generation Prius be running on lithium-ion batteries? Now that would be interesting. As we all know, mobile phones have long ago switched from Ni-Mh to Li-Ion, perhaps hybrids will also be undergoing a similar transition in the future. The factors holding this back have been issues like cost and recharge cycles.

See also :

1. Ford, GM SUV sales nosedive
2. American automakers shift from bad to worse
3. GM to cut 25000 jobs in U.S. by 2008
4. GM, Ford debt cut to junk status

(2005-10-07 08:31:43 SGT) [Biz] Permalink

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