GS Yuasa bringing new automotive Li-ion battery factory online; targeting lowering production costs to 25% of 2009 level

GS Yuasa Corp. will bring a new automotive Li-ion battery factory in Shiga Prefecture online next month, with the aim of reducing production costs.

“Through mass production, we will soon lower production costs to a quarter” of what they were when the company first started making such batteries in 2009, said President Makoto Yoda.

The annual output of the factory, which is being built with Mitsubishi Corp. and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. at a cost of ¥37.5 billion (US$471 million), will be enough to equip 50,000 Mitsubishi Motors i-MiEV electric vehicles. The plant will make batteries for the i-MiEV and Minicab-MiEV, and for i-MiEV-b ased EVs of France’s PSA Peugeot Citroën Group. A plug-in hybrid to be released in fiscal 2012 will also use batteries manufactured at the plant, according to Mitsubishi Motors President Osamu Masuko.

The partners are also building another plant at the same site for ¥30 billion (US$377 million), with the capacity to power 75,000 i-MiEVs a year.

GS Yuasa will triple Li-ion battery supply to Honda

GS Yuasa Corp. plans to boost lithium-ion battery output for Honda Motor Co.'s hybrid vehicles threefold to 15 million cells by fall 2012.

The production hike will be achieved by expanding and strengthening facilities at a Kyoto plant of Blue Energy Co., a joint venture with Honda, at a total cost of about 10 billion yen.

The plant currently produces 5 million cells a year for the Civic Hybrid sold in North America. Its output capacity will be increased to also supply batteries for a plug-in hybrid that Honda plans to launch in Japan and the US later this year. The capacity hike will give the plant the ability to supply enough lithium ion batteries for 200,000 to 300,000 hybrids and plug-in hybrids a year.