Research and Development Work on Lithium-ion Batteries for Environmental Vehicles

Interest in electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) has risen dramatically on account of environmental and energy concerns. The biggest issues that must be addressed in order to popularize these advanced vehicles are related to the battery.
We have been promoting vigorous R&D work on batteries for application to environmental vehicles since the beginning of the 1990s. Attention was focused on lithium-ion batteries early on as a fundamental solution to the critical issue mentioned above. The conclusion was reached that the development of those potentialities to their fullest extent would create completely new forms of value unobtainable with conventional batteries. As a result of extensive theoretical studies and many experimental demonstrations, we successfully showed ahead of others that those potentialities did in fact exist and could be achieved.
This paper makes clear the various performance requirements of advanced batteries for EV or HEV application, focusing in particular on the critical aspects of the battery thermal design and construction for system stability. It also explains how the power output of the lithium-ion battery has been substantially improved for application to HEVs.