Chinese battery manufacturer BYD, which is readying a line of all-electric vehicles, plans to introduce a home energy suite that includes solar panels and batteries.

Mitsubishi Motors Corp.'s battery- making venture with GS Yuasa Corp. is considering producing lithium-ion cells in Europe as demand in the region for electric cars grows.

BYD, a Chinese car and battery maker backed by US billionaire Warren Buffett, said on Sunday its fourth-quarter net profit rose 500% thanks to robust car sales primed by tax incentives from Beijing.

Carmakers will be scrambling to meet demand for electric cars - and the lithium batteries that power them - within the next two years, Carlos Ghosn, chief executive of Renault and Nissan, has predicted.

Panasonic, which runs a hybrid and electric car battery joint venture with Toyota, has secured a controlling stake in rechargeable battery maker Sanyo.

LG Chem has consolidated its position as a global power in car batteries, in a deal with carmaker General Motors for its eco-friendly vehicle, Volt. Samsung SDI is following up with its own major deal with BMW, a German premier carmaker. But Japanese battery makers currently capture 95% of the nickel-metal hybrid batteries market.

...Lithium-ion technology has serious limitations, including the possibility of overheating and bursting into flames. The team settled on a combination of lithium and oxygen as the most promising approach. A lithium-air battery can pack much more punch per square inch because oxygen, one of the key ingredients in the chemical reaction, is added as needed by drawing on ambient air rather than being packaged within the battery from the start.

Sanyo Electric, the rechargeable-battery maker being acquired by Panasonic, forecast an increase in annual operating profit, beating analyst estimates.

The ministry said Japan aims to have solar power systems installed on more than 70 percent of new homes. The new efforts will also include solar power education in schools, the development of refined deep cycle battery technologies and the installation of grid connections.

It's unclear whether Intel executives intend to follow Mr. Grove's advice. Mr. Otellini declined to comment, but a spokesman said that Intel already has investments in battery-related companies through its Intel Capital unit. "We consider battery technology important and we look at a lot of things. But whether we will do anything more, we can't say at this time," the spokesman said.

NanoTech Institute offers tantalizing insights into a new, lightweight, reliable means of delivering power via the mighty supercapacitor. “Our electrode preparation procedure is an extension of conventional bucky-paper [a film made of 100% carbon nanotubes] fabrication technique for the multi-component system,” Oh said. “This procedure is easily scalable for device fabrication on an industrial scale.”

Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) provided the model numbers of the products in question August 19, 2008. The model numbers that METI announced are MA004J/A (sold 708,000 units), MA005J/A (sold 393,000 units), MA099J/A (sold 424,000 units) and MA107J/A (sold 287,000 units). METI called on consumers to be aware of these models in particular, as it has heard of multiple cases where they have caused an accident while charging their secondary batteries.

Matsushita Electric Industrial has informally decided to build a lithium-ion battery plant in Suminoe Ward, Osaka, that will be the largest such plant in the world, it has been learned. The plant will be built at a cost of more than 100 billion yen on a site near Osaka Bay that was formerly occupied by a thermal power station of the Kansai Electric Power. Matsushita Battery Industrial, a Matsushita Electric subsidiary, will commence production at the plant in fiscal 2010 at the earliest, according to sources.

...But there could be an even bigger pothole in the road to electric vehicles: Battereis based on lithium ion technology may be hard to come by. Dr. Robin Tichy, product marketing manager at lithium ion battery pack vendor Micro Power Electronics, says that lithium ion cells have been in short supply since the infamous Sony laptop battery recalls which began in the summer of 2006.