Thursday, May 26, 2011

VW to award contract for EV batteries to Bosch, source says


German automotive supplier Bosch is set to receive a major contract to develop electric car batteries for Volkswagen AG, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters today.

Awarding Stuttgart-based Bosch the contract would give VW a second battery supplier next to Japan's Sanyo. Both VW and Bosch declined to comment on the matter.

Global automakers are accelerating plans to electrify their cars through gasoline-electric hybrids, plug-in hybrids and pure electric vehicles to stay competitive as governments around the world tighten emissions and fuel economy standards.

Volkswagen has said it plans to launch all-electric vehicles in 2013 and expects these zero-emission vehicles to account for 3 percent of its sales by 2018.

But two major challenges that carmakers face to mass producing electric vehicle are the high cost of the batteries and the limited range of all-electric vehicles.

2 comments:

  1. Yeah, the biggest problem of all-electric vehicle is the limited range. You can't travel it for you need to charge it.

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  2. Which is why we are hoping that the battery technology will catch up soon and give us a 300 mile range. Of course, aerodynamic and lightweight vehicles can help us reach that goal as well.

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