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Green cars drive hybrid alliances
in Japan
High gas prices,
growing concerns over the environment and a slew
of new car models are giving incentives to
motorists around the world to opt for hybrid
vehicles. In the US, for example, registrations
for hybrid vehicles have increased 28% to 43,435,
according to automobile market research concern R
L Polk & Co. In Japan, the growing demand for
green vehicles has begun to alter the map of
inter-company and inter-industry relationships in
the automobile and other industrial sectors.
On February 2, The Nihon Keizai Shimbun
reported that Toyota Motor Corp and Fuji Heavy
Industries Ltd plan to form a technological
alliance in hybrid vehicles. The news took Japan's
automobile industry watchers by surprise as the
top shareholder of Fuji Heavy - the maker of
Subaru vehicles - is General Motors. GM owns 20%
of the equity stake in the Japanese company.
In developing hybrid vehicle technology,
however, GM formed a technological partnership
with DaimlerChrysler AG in December, and the two
companies are believed to be working together to
put their technology into large vehicles with
engine displacements of 4.5 liters or more. The
technology is not expected to be applied any time
soon to vehicles with small engines.
Fuji
Heavy has been pursuing its own hybrid technology;
one of the results, jointly developed with NEC
Corp, is hybrid vehicles that use lithium-ion
batteries. But the financial burden of research
and development has been growing, and the company
is lagging behind Toyota, Honda Motor Co and
Nissan Motor Co in the race to add green vehicles
to the product line.
Under the cooperation
contract, Toyota will supply to Fuji Heavy the
power system that will be used in the Legacy and
other car models to be put on the North American
market. Currently, the North American market
accounts for 35% of the group sales of Fuji Heavy.
Toyota, on the other hand, hopes to recover the
high costs incurred by the development of its
hybrid technology as much as possible. Toyota sold
some 120,000 of its hybrid vehicles mainly in
Japan and North America in 2004 and provided the
know-how to Nissan and Ford Motor Co. The latest
deal is expected help Toyota receive additional
dividend from its investment in hybrid technology.
The realignment in inter-company
technological partnerships caused by a growing
popularity of hybrid vehicles is now drawing in
the electronics industry as well. Toshiba Corp
will begin supplying Toyota this autumn with
dedicated chips for use in the auto maker's
gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles. Toyota
currently purchases the bulk of its chips for
hybrid cars from Mitsubishi Electric Corp. But
once Toshiba wins Toyota's confidence, the company
can anticipate doing business with Toyota on a
long-term basis, and it will be easier to cut
deals with Honda and other hybrid producers.
Another electronics maker, Sanyo Electric
Co, plans to double its production capacity for
rechargeable batteries to 2 million units per
month by the second half of fiscal 2005, intending
to sell the output for use in hybrids to Honda and
Ford. A single hybrid vehicle carries about 200
batteries. Sanyo is also considering developing
batteries for hybrids in collaboration with the
Mercedes Benz division of DaimlerChrysler AG and
Robert Bosch GmbH.
Outlook
As
oil prices escalate toward the US$60 level, both
consumers and governments are gravitating to
hybrid cars. Hollywood star Leonard DiCaprio
arrived at this year's Academy Awards in his
Toyota Prius, forgoing a gas-guzzling limo. James
Woolsey, the former director of the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) and staunch backer of
the Iraq war, also drives a Prius.
To give
taxpayers an incentive to buy the gas misers, the
Internal Revenue Service of the US is now offering
a $2,000 one-time deduction on the 2004 or 2005
tax returns for those who purchase new hybrid
cars. Some states also offer tax breaks. Colorado,
for example, offers tax credits of about $3,000 on
some models of hybrid cars.
Despite the
current hype surrounding hybrid cars and the
release of new models scheduled in the next few
years, the fuel-saving vehicles will probably peak
at about 3% of the total US market by 2010, warns
market research firm J D Power and Associates.
This is primarily attributed to the price premium
of $3,000-$4,000 that consumers must pay for a
hybrid vehicle, compared with a comparable
non-hybrid, explains Anthony Pratt, a senior
manager at J D Power.
Another factor is
competing technologies, such as more
fuel-efficient gasoline and diesel options that
will be available after 2006, says Pratt. But many
automobile engineers are more optimistic about the
future of hybrid cars. John German, manager of
environmental and energy analyses for American
Honda Motor Co predicts hybrids could reach 50-70%
of the market in 10 years.
(Asia
Pulse) |
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