Volkswagen Looking for Battery Vendor in China - 12/1/08

Volkswagen and Audi have partnered with Japan’s Sanyo to supply the lithium ion batteries for their hybrid and electric vehicles.  Volkswagen’s Chinese operations would instead like to find a local supplier.  VW China president Xu Jian expects the pace of development of hybrid and electric vehicles to exceed internal combustion engines in the next decade.  He also expects purely electric cars to develop faster than hybrids.

VW wants to be more competitive in China by sourcing components like batteries from local vendors instead of shipping them from Japan. 

VW believes 80% of vehicles will use internal combustion engines by 2020 laving electric and hybrid cars taking 20% of the market.  This will depend on government incentives for the promotion on the new technology.  

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