Matsushita Electric Industrial, the maker of the Panasonic brand, said they are working on mass-producing spark-resistant batteries. The goal is simple: Create a battery that won’t blow up and kill your stock value.
Digital Journal — Matsushita has already boosted production capacity of batteries that come with insulated, heatproof layers. Earlier this year production levels were outputting about 100,000 units per month which has been increased to five million.
The hot issue of exploding batteries has been on the minds of all manufacturers since defects were found in Sony batteries, forcing millions of laptops from almost every manufacturer to be recalled.
Matsushita spokesman Akira Kadota said the company wants to raise production of heat-resistant batteries for laptops first, then raise production of insulated batters to half of all lithium-ion batteries it makes in 2009.
Smart move, and Sony better be paying attention. Matsushita says they currently hold about 13 per cent of the global lithium-ion battery market (they output 15 million lithium-ion batteries for laptops and 10 million for cell phones per month) meaning they come behind Sanyo, Sony and Samsung.
But with consumers actively looking for news on how manufactures plan to deal with the battery issue, Matsushita could see a boost in sales and market share.
